as in irritable
having or showing a habitually bad temper
a cantankerous old woman who insisted that nothing should ever be allowed to change
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Recent Examples of cantankerous
As for Notre Dame, the College Football Playoff chase is on as the Irish head to Pittsburgh to face its cantankerous head coach.
—
Pete Sampson, New York Times, 13 Nov. 2025
Getty portrayed the cantankerous but charming matriarch Sophia Petrillo, the mother of Arthur's character, and McClanahan played the flirtatious Southern belle Blanche.
—Ashley Hume , Stephanie Nolasco, FOXNews.com, 14 Sep. 2025
Tudyk played Sonny, a robot who helps the cantankerous detective uncover the truth behind his creator's death.
—Taijuan Moorman, USA Today, 12 Aug. 2025
Advertisement Johnson anticipates more challenges from his cantankerous colleagues.
—Eric Cortellessa, Time, 7 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cantankerous
Pete Sampson, New York Times, 13 Nov. 2025
Getty portrayed the cantankerous but charming matriarch Sophia Petrillo, the mother of Arthur's character, and McClanahan played the flirtatious Southern belle Blanche.
—Ashley Hume , Stephanie Nolasco, FOXNews.com, 14 Sep. 2025
Tudyk played Sonny, a robot who helps the cantankerous detective uncover the truth behind his creator's death.
—Taijuan Moorman, USA Today, 12 Aug. 2025
Advertisement Johnson anticipates more challenges from his cantankerous colleagues.
—Eric Cortellessa, Time, 7 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cantankerous
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cantankerous
Adjective
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This can include feeling irritable, having a low frustration tolerance, feeling easily overstimulated, and having rapid shifts in emotion.—
Korin Miller,
SELF,
20 Jan. 2026
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Accompanying Rayner through these daily adventures were the irritable duck Chelveston (named after his English bomber base) and the gentle dog puppet Cuddly Dudley.—
Michael Peregrine,
Chicago Tribune,
2 Jan. 2026
Adjective
-
Grifters can be analyzed by affect (jolly, cold, angry, greedy, sad) and/or by gender.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
23 Jan. 2026
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Agents made several arrests in supermarket parking lots and at tamale stands while goading angry residents who confronted them and threatening to unleash tear gas.—
Jason Meisner,
Chicago Tribune,
23 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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Sometimes he’d be sent out to deal with the more ornery guests in an effort to calm them.—
Stephanie Breijo,
Los Angeles Times,
14 Jan. 2026
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With its abundance of concrete, startling interior views, and play of deep shadows, the design invokes the ornery inventiveness of Kahn and Paul Rudolph, combined with the corporate sleekness of MoMA’s most recent iterations by Yoshio Taniguchi and Diller Scofidio + Renfro.—
Justin Davidson,
Curbed,
3 Nov. 2025
Adjective
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Arrigo, instead, surly and withdrawn as always, mumbled those incomprehensible phrases of his—not that anyone paid him any attention, not even his wife.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
22 Jan. 2026
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Now 82 years old, Chase comes off as a surly, forgetful man.—
Rick Kogan,
Chicago Tribune,
13 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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My favorite movie of the year is a disagreeable but highly entertaining tale as exhausting as today’s politics with characters nobody could possibly root for.—
John Waters,
Vulture,
3 Dec. 2025
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Over the weekend, reports emerged that the higher tariffs followed a disagreeable Thursday phone call between Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter and Trump — which Swiss officials rejected, according to Reuters.—
Sophie Kiderlin,Jenni Reid,
CNBC,
4 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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Better is Danny Elfman’s spartan and fraught score, particularly the dyspeptic drums.—
Amy Nicholson,
Los Angeles Times,
8 Jan. 2026
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But Kael sensed in her less dyspeptic moments that there was something special about Redford.—
Stephen Galloway,
HollywoodReporter,
18 Sep. 2025
Adjective
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Meanwhile, the commentator and controversialist Piers Morgan, an obsessively close observer and relentless critic of Meghan, inevitably waded in with his usual splenetic views.—
Sarah Lyall,
New York Times,
17 Sep. 2022
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And while there is enough splenetic wit and manic detail to generate obsessive fandom (entire sections of Web sites are dedicated to deciphering just what Kenny is mumbling), subjects like alien abduction, genetic engineering, and Kathie Lee are hardly original targets for satire.—
Chris Norris,
SPIN,
13 Aug. 2022
Adjective
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Sun shrinking and getting hotter; everything bilious, oxygenless, not great for living.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
3 Nov. 2025
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Minaj’s bilious flurry is possibly related to claims that she is owed between $100 to 200 million related to her stake in Tidal, the music streaming service launched and spearheaded by Jay-Z in 2015 and was sold to Jack Dorsey’s company Square for $297 million in 2021.—
Andrew Flanagan,
Variety,
15 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Cantankerous.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cantankerous. Accessed 25 Jan. 2026.
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