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
But one favorite will not suit up - Phil Dunster, who played talented yet cantankerous pretty-boy goal scorer, Jamie Tartt.
—
Marco Della Cava, USA TODAY, 14 Mar. 2025
Hackman's criminal mastermind was wily, vain, cantankerous, and a bit too sure of himself.
—David Morgan, CBS News, 27 Feb. 2025
The membership must have been particularly cantankerous this year, since only four players – Gates, Eric Allen, Jared Allen and Sterling Sharpe – were selected.
—Jim Alexander, Orange County Register, 7 Feb. 2025
What to Know Coughenour, 83, has a reputation for being a tough and cantankerous judge.
—Barbara A. Perry, Newsweek, 27 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cantankerous
Marco Della Cava, USA TODAY, 14 Mar. 2025
Hackman's criminal mastermind was wily, vain, cantankerous, and a bit too sure of himself.
—David Morgan, CBS News, 27 Feb. 2025
The membership must have been particularly cantankerous this year, since only four players – Gates, Eric Allen, Jared Allen and Sterling Sharpe – were selected.
—Jim Alexander, Orange County Register, 7 Feb. 2025
What to Know Coughenour, 83, has a reputation for being a tough and cantankerous judge.
—Barbara A. Perry, Newsweek, 27 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for cantankerous
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cantankerous
Adjective
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Cass fulfills his obligations in a particularly irritable way.—
Jesse Hassenger,
Vulture,
30 Apr. 2025
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One person’s fatigue is another’s back pain, is another’s migraine or irritable bowel, or long Covid, and so on.—
Jessica DuLong,
CNN Money,
11 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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Major tennis governing bodies moved to combat online abuse and published last year a report that attributed nearly half of abusive social media posts to angry gamblers.—
Reuters,
CNN Money,
3 June 2025
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Testimony in a Placer County murder trial continued Tuesday with an investigator reciting angry emails over a $1.3 million loan for a fledgling business between a Lake Tahoe-area couple and their former Major League Baseball player son-in-law who is accused of shooting them.—
Rosalio Ahumada,
Sacbee.com,
3 June 2025
Adjective
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The ornery character actor Richard Kind is his announcer, barking non sequiturs from behind a podium.—
David Sims,
The Atlantic,
7 Apr. 2025
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That puts him in league with ornery old-timers being refused entry into supermarkets, where customers queue outside, standing six feet apart.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
16 May 2025
Adjective
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Commerce City police helped return a surly rattlesnake to the wild this month after a resident found the venomous reptile coiled in their home’s driveway.—
Max Levy,
Denver Post,
31 May 2025
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The third reason to slip the surly bonds of Earth is that our air is extremely good at shielding us from many wavelengths of light our eyes cannot see.—
Phil Plait,
Scientific American,
29 May 2025
Adjective
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Befriending Cressida Cowper is a respectable exercise in recognizing biases, but the pair’s interactions are as disagreeable as those bangs.—
Zoe Haylock,
Vulture,
16 May 2024
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If Alex has a bit more credibility, not being as intractable in her positions, both have a tendency to come off as disagreeable in their incessant bickering and self-righteousness.—
Charles McNulty,
Los Angeles Times,
26 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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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
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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
Adjective
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Under Nézet-Séguin, the musicians do the job spectacularly, releasing all those bilious harmonies and seething rhythms in an unbroken two-hour spasm of excitement.—
Justin Davidson,
Vulture,
30 Apr. 2025
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And Emily’s side of the family isn't much better, represented by her mean, bilious aunt (Allison Janney, herself no slouch in the hissing-authority department) and her boozy mother (Elizabeth Perkins, replacing Jean Smart from the first film).—
Tom Gliatto,
People.com,
30 Apr. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Cantankerous.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cantankerous. Accessed 12 Jun. 2025.
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