cantankerous
Sep. 2nd, 2022 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordcantankerous (kan-TANG-ker-uhs) - adj., ill-tempered and quarrelsome, disagreeable, cranky, crabby, surly; difficult to handle or deal with.
There were more synonyms I could have added to that first sense, which just goes to show we have deal with a lot of cantankerous people, that we have so many words to describe them. Origin is uncertain, almost everyone agrees there's some relationship with Middle English contek, dissension or contakour, troublemaker, with some sort of influence of rancorous and cankerous. Both of those trace to Anglo-French contec, discord/strife, which some link to Latin contāctus, past participle of contingere, to touch, and others to Old French contechier, from con-, with + -teche, stem of atachier, hold fast -- at which point I get cantankerous and walk away.
---L.
There were more synonyms I could have added to that first sense, which just goes to show we have deal with a lot of cantankerous people, that we have so many words to describe them. Origin is uncertain, almost everyone agrees there's some relationship with Middle English contek, dissension or contakour, troublemaker, with some sort of influence of rancorous and cankerous. Both of those trace to Anglo-French contec, discord/strife, which some link to Latin contāctus, past participle of contingere, to touch, and others to Old French contechier, from con-, with + -teche, stem of atachier, hold fast -- at which point I get cantankerous and walk away.
---L.
