Cantankerous

(pronounced kan-tang-kur-us) adjective

Definition

1. quarrelsome; bad-tempered; easily irritated or annoyed; peevish. 2. (of a person or thing) hard to work with; difficult to handle; uncooperative.

Main Example

According to polls, the economy was a major concern among those who voted in the handful of gubernatorial elections that took place on Tuesday, November 3. With unemployment projected to stay very high most if not all of next year, candidates seeking reelection to the offices of governor, the House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate in the November 2010 midterm election can expect to see an increasingly cantankerous electorate.

Workplace Examples

Before you walk into the vice president’s office with this bad news, make sure you have all the facts straight! I can tell you from personal experience that this is going to make him very cantankerous, and he will immediately assail you with a host of rapid-fire questions--why did this happen, why wasn’t I told before, who screwed up, what is being done about it, and so on.
I’m afraid my father is not the same jolly person you met twenty years ago. Because of his severe health problems, he has turned into a cantankerous old man, constantly criticizing or complaining about something or the other. The only time he isn’t grouchy or irritable is when he’s in the company of his grandchildren.

Other Examples

this author saying: “The cantankerousness of my Labrador retriever, Buddy, really had the veterinarian throwing up her hands in frustration.”
people of some societies or cultures being, by nature, cantankerous and suspicious of outsiders; a material being described as cantankerous because manufacturers have a hard time working with it
interviewer Charlie Rose telling the late architect Philip Johnson: “You are very lovable even though you are cantankerous.”
the family of the late actress Katherine Hepburn, as portrayed in the critically-acclaimed movie “The Aviator,” being the most cantankerous this author has ever seen; somebody who is acting cantankerously
in his 2008 film “Gran Torino,” Clint Eastwood playing a sullen and cantankerous Korean War veteran who initially confronts, and later befriends, his Hmong immigrant neighbors