Crabbed
['kræbɪd;kræbd] or ['kræbɪd]
Definition
(n.) Characterized by or manifesting, sourness, peevishness, or moroseness; harsh; cross; cynical; -- applied to feelings, disposition, or manners.
(n.) Characterized by harshness or roughness; unpleasant; -- applied to things; as, a crabbed taste.
(n.) Obscure; difficult; perplexing; trying; as, a crabbed author.
(n.) Cramped; irregular; as, crabbed handwriting.
Editor: Warren
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. [1]. Sour, tart, rough.[2]. Morose, surly, testy, touchy, cross, growling, snarling, snappish, cantankerous, waspish, petulant, peevish, churlish, harsh, acrimonious, caustic, captious, censorious, splenetic, out of sorts, ill-tempered.[3]. Difficult, perplexing, trying, unmanageable, tough, intractable, hard to deal with.
Checked by Delores
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Sour, morose, crossgrained, petulant, churlish, irritable, crusty
ANT:Pleasant, open, easy, genial, conversable, warm, cordial, heart
Checked by Estes
Examples
- Everybody thinks me crabbed and odd (with perfect justice); and everybody thinks her sweet-tempered and charming (with more justice still). Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- Speak up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say you saw him put it there! Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- Crabbed and crusty as ever! Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- A crabbed dialogue terminated in my being called une petite moqueuse et sans-coeur, and in Monsieur's temporary departure. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- She had sat up of nights conning lessons and spelling over crabbed grammars and geography books in order to teach them to Georgy. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- Instead of toiling at a crabbed text and then thinking over its significance, readers now could think unimpeded as they read. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
Checked by Estes