cantankerous
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Playing a confounding, cantankerous old painter who hasn’t touched a canvas in at least 20 years, Mr. McKellen delivers yet another marvelous late-career highlight.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 9, 2026
In “Greenberg,” Ben Stiller’s title character is a cantankerous and neurotic New Yorker who has fled west after a nervous breakdown.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 12, 2025
The pair takes the cold case team starring in Jussi Adler-Olsen’s series of novels and transports them to Edinburgh, casting the cantankerous Carl as an English outsider among Scots.
From Salon • Jun. 28, 2025
A foreign policy insider told me: "It might come at a price, but it is in our interest for him to be a success, not be cantankerous."
From BBC • Jan. 18, 2025
I think fear had made us all a little cantankerous.
From "Walk Two Moons" by Sharon Creech
Vocabulary lists containing cantankerous
In the Mood? 100 Words to Describe Emotions
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Negative Words to Describe a Person
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Grade 10, List 5
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