• cantankerous •
Printable Version Pronunciation: kæn-tæng-kêr-ês • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Ill-tempered, perverse, quarrelsome.
Notes: A crusty person is rough around the edges, occasionally offensive but not necessarily ill-tempered. Someone who is crotchety is ill-tempered and contrary, to their mind, defensively. Cantankerous folks, however, are not only ill-tempered, but mean-spiritedly so and rather aggressive. They behave cantankerously because of their cantankerousness.
In Play: There is no reasoning with a truly cantankerous person: "Don't even try giving a birthday party to that cantankerous old bird; he will just spoil it for everyone—including himself." Cantankerous folk can be insulting for reasons all their own: "Jess Newcombe, that cantankerous old jerk, said he couldn't use his right hand to shake hands with me because he eats with it!"
Word History: As you might have surmised yourself, today's Good Word has nothing to do with cans or tanks. Rather, it is probably an extension of a Middle English word conteckour "someone who causes strife" from contek "strife, contention. A natural adjective from that word would be *conteckourous, only a small N away from today's word. The problem is that we have no published confirmation of conteckourous. Crotchety is the English version of French crochet "a hook, rod with a hook on the end", now used as a verb and pronounced [kro-shay], as in French. A crotchety person, hence, would seem to have been once perceived as a person covered with hooks and barbs. (When Don McCormick and his wife failed to agree on whether she is cantankerous or crotchety, they turned to us to settle the dispute, as well they should. We hope to have shed light on the issue; no use arguing in the dark.)
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