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Cantankerous   /kæntˈæŋkərəs/   Listen
Cantankerous

adjective
1.
Stubbornly obstructive and unwilling to cooperate.  Synonym: bloody-minded.
2.
Having a difficult and contrary disposition.  Synonyms: crotchety, ornery.






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"Cantankerous" Quotes from Famous Books



... dropping all concealment, Eva springs to her feet: "Yes, elsewhere shall fortune bloom for him than in the neighbourhood of you repulsive envy-ridden creatures!—elsewhere, where hearts still have some warmth in them, in spite of all cantankerous Master Hanses!—Directly, yes, I am coming!" (This to Magdalene, who has been calling to her from her father's door.) "I go home much comforted! It reeks of pitch here till God take pity on us! Kindle a fire with it, do, Master ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... the characters of a region help to modify the children born in it. I am fond of making apologies for human nature, and I think I could find an excuse for myself if I, too, were dry and barren and muddy-witted and "cantankerous,"—disposed to get my back up, like those other natives ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... should disclose to us the soul of the place, with its eternal youth and eternal antiquity. It should introduce us to its charming ghosts—it is difficult to name one disagreeable person in this pageant; even the cantankerous Smollett was soothed when he came under its spell. It should enable us to touch finger-tips, perhaps make closer acquaintance, with Sir Thomas More, Erasmus, Hans Holbein, Thomas Shadwell (forgotten laureate), Carlyle, Whistler, ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... know animals are pretty much like people. There are some good ones and some bad ones. Now, this dog is a snarling, cross-grained, cantankerous beast, and when I heard Joe was coming, I said: 'Now we'll have a good dog about the place, and here's an end to the bad one.' So I tied Bruno up, and to-morrow I shall shoot him. Something's got to be done, or ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... Pensionnaire wants to know how she can get to that lovely valley where the Tiger-lilies grow, without taking a carriage. The British Matron, where she can buy rusks, "real English rusks, you know." A cantankerous tripper asks "why he never has bread-sauce with the nightly chicken." And we all troop to "Mr." after breakfast, to beg him to affix postage-stamps to our letters, and to demand the precise time when "they will reach England;" as if they wouldn't reach at all without "Mr.'s" authority. It gives ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various


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