Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Ill temper; crabbedness; cantankerousness; snappishness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Peevishness; malignity; frowardness; crabbedness; surliness.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • “Na,” said the man quietly, “it's no religion, it's curstness,” i.e. crabbedness, insinuating that acerbity of temper, as well as zeal, was occasionally the cause of congregations being multiplied.

    Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character Ramsay, Edward B 1874

  • II. ii.25 (141,3) Nor curstness grow to the matter] Let not _ill-humour_ be added to the real _subject_ of our difference.

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

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