1700-1800 Partly from ➔ CRANK1; partly from crank ‘loose, not working properly’(18-19 centuries) (perhaps from Dutch or Germankrank ‘weak, ill’)
Examples
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER DICTIONARIES
Scott seems a little cranky this morning.
EXAMPLES FROM THE CORPUS
But on another plane, there was a certain determined grumbling, a cranky insistence that they were not meeting their standards.
On arrival the boy was cranky and refused to walk through the airport.
They became cranky and quarrelsome, and stopped most of their activities in order to conserve energy.
We had a fairly peaceful time, but Clarisa and Janir argued a lot, and she was a cranky visitor.
1British English informal strange → eccentric, weird: Organic farming is no longer thought of as cranky.2informal bad-tempered: I was feeling tired and cranky.—crankiness noun [uncountable]