as in cantankerous
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Recent Examples of Synonyms for cross-grained
Adjective
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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,
Literary Hub,
16 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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This canonical part has been played by some of the foremost women of the British stage, among them Judi Dench, Maggie Smith, and Edith Evans, who, in Anthony Asquith’s 1952 film adaptation, put a delightfully querulous spin on Lady Bracknell’s most indelible lines.—
Rebecca Mead,
New Yorker,
17 Nov. 2025
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Trying to Kill Each Other' And Walken is marvelous — querulous, petty, cruel — as the Emperor.—
Tom Gliatto,
Peoplemag,
29 Feb. 2024
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
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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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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As a ballplayer, Kent was as irascible as Bonds; the two alphas reportedly brawled behind clubhouse doors, and famously clashed in the dugout during a 2002 game, when Bonds lunged for Kent’s throat and pushed him against the wall.—
Jeremy Collins,
The Atlantic,
12 Dec. 2025
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Nothing adds depth to an irascible curmudgeon quite like an irrational love of pets that do not love you back.—
Kathryn VanArendonk,
Vulture,
3 Dec. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Cross-grained.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cross-grained. Accessed 30 Jan. 2026.
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