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
High pop flys in left field during day games at the club’s spring ballpark have proven at times to be a cantankerous venture.
—
Shawn McFarland, Dallas Morning News, 22 Feb. 2026
Close leads the series as Maud Oldcastle, an older woman described as cantankerous and also a killer.
—John Hopewell, Variety, 18 Feb. 2026
Lori Tan Chinn charms as a cantankerous Chinatown grandmother, while Jamie Lee Curtis makes a memorable meal of her single scene as a mob boss.
—Beandrea July, IndieWire, 28 Jan. 2026
Ornery, bizarre, cantankerous, brilliant, talented, stubborn—all characters from our lives.
—Literary Hub, 16 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for cantankerous
Shawn McFarland, Dallas Morning News, 22 Feb. 2026
Close leads the series as Maud Oldcastle, an older woman described as cantankerous and also a killer.
—John Hopewell, Variety, 18 Feb. 2026
Lori Tan Chinn charms as a cantankerous Chinatown grandmother, while Jamie Lee Curtis makes a memorable meal of her single scene as a mob boss.
—Beandrea July, IndieWire, 28 Jan. 2026
Ornery, bizarre, cantankerous, brilliant, talented, stubborn—all characters from our lives.
—Literary Hub, 16 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for cantankerous
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cantankerous
Adjective
-
Perhaps through feeling more irritable, more anxious, or wanting to isolate.—
Joy Harden Bradford,
AJC.com,
2 Apr. 2026
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Had my symptoms maybe been put down to irritable bowel, for example, that could’ve been ongoing and ongoing and ongoing for a much longer period of time.—
Gina Kalsi,
PEOPLE,
2 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
The many leaps in time to the wedding—to which Ruben shows up on a motorcycle, angry enough to knock his brother out with a single punch—consistently ratchet up the sense of dread, and the suspense over why or how these two have stayed enmeshed.—
Inkoo Kang,
New Yorker,
24 Apr. 2026
-
Jabil board defies angry shareholders.—
Jim Edwards,
Fortune,
24 Apr. 2026
Adjective
-
The rabbi is ornery, arrogant, sometimes cruel.—
Daniel Felsenthal,
Vulture,
26 Mar. 2026
-
For ornery toddlers, who want to do everything themselves, Rao suggests giving them their own toothbrush to use while parents brush their teeth with a second one right alongside them.—
Sarah Lindenfeld Hall,
Popular Science,
11 Mar. 2026
Adjective
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The police chief must team with a marine biologist and a surly shark hunter to stop the beast's reign of terror.—
K. Thor Jensen,
PC Magazine,
17 Apr. 2026
-
And who could blame these romantic dreamers for wanting to cast aside the surly bonds of Earth to visit the pale beauty of our cratered satellite?—
Jeff Spry,
Space.com,
30 Mar. 2026
Adjective
-
Another bill would put regulations around data centers, although lawmakers in the final days stripped out some of the language that tech companies found disagreeable.—
Garrett Shanley,
Miami Herald,
13 Mar. 2026
-
The day was cold and disagreeable, disappointing those who hoped for warm, sunny weather for the contest between Bogardus and Carver.—
AJ Willingham,
AJC.com,
24 Feb. 2026
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
-
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
-
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 Apr. 2026.
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