Cantankerous

 WORD OF THE DAY

cantankerous / adjective / kan-TANK-uh-rus

Definition
: difficult or irritating to deal with

Examples
“The episode centers around the Daffodil Ball, a magnificent cow, and a cantankerous pig. I would also be cantankerous if veterinarians who hadn't even passed their exams were chasing me around with a scalpel.”
— Alice Burton, Vulture, 16 Jan. 2022

Contemporaries often found him aloof, standoffish, and cantankerous and his mannerisms and diction inscrutable.
— Jonathan Spence, New York Review of Books, 22 Oct. 2009

Did You Know?
Cantankerous people are cranky: they’re grumpy and angry and if we think charitably about them for a moment we might consider that they possibly suffer from a health affliction that sours the mood.
It’s been speculated that cantankerous is a product of the Middle English contack, meaning “contention,” under the influence of a pair of words: rancorous and cankerous.
Rancorous brings the anger and "bitter deep-seated ill will" (as rancor can be understood to mean).
And cankerous brings the perhaps understandable foul mood: a cankerous person suffers from painful sores—that is, cankers.