Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A peevish, irascible person; a grouch.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A grumpy, bad-tempered or irascible person.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. An ill-natured person.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An ill-natured person.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. a bad-tempered person
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Examples
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Don't be a fashion crosspatch, denouncing girls in shorts so short they look more like underwear than items of outdoor clothing.
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He's a youthful crosspatch, a reedy-voiced adolescent with a gripe.
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Our pick for walls is the Eames crosspatch combo, which comes in a pack of 20 squares. $52 at www. whatisblik.com.
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The couple with that crosspatch cat, Bathsheba, had bars on all the ground-floor and basement windows, and no fewer than three separate locks on their front door.
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I am conscious of having been something of a crosspatch this week, so allow me to finish by applauding BBC4 for its North of England stuff.
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Nancys hands were clenched into fists by her side, her mouth drawn tight as a crosspatch.
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Nobody wants to represent an argumentative crosspatch.
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I like this word a lot, and intend to use it as a self-description when I get the chance: "Don't mind me; I'm just an old crosspatch."
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"Your sister is being a crosspatch, don't encourage her".
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A NY Times article by Charlie LeDuff taught me a new word: "The bodies are then sent to the Frye Chapel and Mortuary in Brawley and tended by Francis Frye, an 86-year-old crosspatch."
Gammerstang commented on the word crosspatch
(noun) - Patch was at one time a term of contempt. It did not . . . necessarily mean a fool, but signified what we now mean by a contemptible fellow. Shakespeare has A Midsummer Night's Dream: "A crew of patches, base mechanicals." Crosspatch is the only remnant of the word. It is very expressive of a cross, ill-tempered, disagreeable person.
--Eliezer Edwards' Dictionary of Words, Facts, and Phrases, 1882
January 17, 2018
MaryW commented on the word crosspatch
Kate Atkinson, Case Histories (New York: Little Brown & Co., 2004), p. 160.May 30, 2016
qms commented on the word crosspatch
See comments at pilulous.
February 12, 2016