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WOTD  
Word of the Day - for Toastmasters everywhere
Wednesday 12th July 2023
Archive | Previous word | Today's word | Next word

cantankerous (adjective) kan-TANG-kur-us



Quarrelsome, stubborn, contrary, grouchy.

This is a raw, searching account of Cooper’s attempts to come to terms with his estranged father, a remote and cantankerous man who once sent the author a bill for his paternal services in the amount of $2 million.

Ihsan Taylor, The New York Times, 4 March 2007,
New York Times
reviewing Bernard Cooper's, The Bill from my Father. Amazon

A report earlier this week said that people do not get cantankerous as they grow older; they are born that way.

John Major, Commons Hansard, 13 February 1997. Commons Hansard

We all know that critics are supposed to be cantankerous creatures by default, but I also think there is a particular moment in the life of a critic when the ‘been there, seen that’ feeling — otherwise politely known as ‘knowledge’ or ‘experience’ — kicks in unmercifully, no matter that I have always hated, and still do, the ‘in the old days things were much better’ attitude.

Giannandrea Poesio, The Spectator, 21 November 2007. The Spectator

The neighbors' placid dog, grown suddenly cantankerous, howls for half an hour without pausing to clear its throat.

John Ash, Misconceptions of Richness, published in The New Yorker, 15 January 1990. The New Yorker

On June 20th the cantankerous (and sometimes incoherent) MPs of Parliament's Treasury Committee put bigwigs from Permira, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR), 3i and Carlyle Group - four of the world's biggest buyout firms - through a heated cross-examination.

Unattributed, The Economist, 21 June 2007. Economist




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