bad-tempered

adjective

bad-tem·​pered ˈbad-ˈtem-pərd 

: easily annoyed or angered : having or showing a bad temper : surly, ill-tempered

Bad-tempered drivers banged on the door and left cursing without a fare.

—Deborah Levy

It's not a good idea to make a love story about two people who are so self-absorbed, sniveling and bad-tempered that the audience wants them to end up in a dumpster, not living happily ever after. Ralph Novak

Examples of bad-tempered in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Childhood visits to Kenya were a mission in themselves—three days of connecting flights and interminable transits in Athens, Cairo, and Nairobi before arriving, bleary-eyed and bad-tempered, in Mombasa. —Selina Denman, Condé Nast Traveler, 9 Nov. 2024

Moose mothers, having lost a significant portion of their young, can also be bad-tempered by the time June rolls around. —Jim Geraghty, Washington Post, 20 June 2024

Who among us has not gazed in dismay at a world that’s not just increasingly bad-tempered, but seems to hold against each one of us some focused, individual grudge? —Jessica Kiang, Variety, 9 Oct. 2023

In Nigeria, for example, a small and bad-tempered snake called the West African carpet viper is responsible for most of the country's bites. —Cassandra Willyard, Scientific American, 19 Sep. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1671, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for bad-tempered

• distempered
• untempered
• tempered