cranky
/ˈkraŋki
/adjective (crankier, crankiest)
1British informal Eccentric or strange: a cranky scheme to pipe ground-level ozone into the stratosphere...
- In life he was regarded as an awkward customer, a cranky, eccentric figure with a talent for rubbing people up the wrong way.
- The administrators are cranky and making the strangest decisions.
- We're not this weird, cranky, fanged minority that is secretly drinking blood in the name of its depraved godlessness!
Synonyms
eccentric, bizarre, weird, peculiar, odd, quirky, avant-garde, unconventional, off-centre, strange, outlandish, ridiculous, ludicrous;
mad, insane, crazy, absurd
informal wacky, screwy, nutty, nuts, crackpot, cracked, oddball, kinky, off the wall, way out, dippy, cuckoo
British informal daft
North American informal kooky, wacko, left-field
Australian/New Zealand informal, dated dilly
2chiefly North American Bad-tempered; irritable: he was cranky after eight hours of working...
- This lack of rest has caused a radical shift in my personality, making me cranky, irritable, and prone to curse loudly at the slightest provocation.
- Do you find yourself irritable and cranky, taking out your anxiety and frustration on those you love?
- These individuals are emotionally robust despite their shy demeanour, and they have high standards for themselves, which is why they can seem cranky and irritable.
Synonyms
bad-tempered, irritable, irascible, tetchy, testy, grumpy, grouchy, crotchety, in a (bad) mood, ill-tempered, ill-natured, ill-humoured, peevish;
having got out of bed the wrong side, cross, as cross as two sticks, fractious, disagreeable, cantankerous, curmudgeonly, pettish, crabbed, crabby, waspish, prickly, peppery, touchy, scratchy, crusty, splenetic, shrewish, short-tempered, hot-tempered, quick-tempered, dyspeptic, choleric, bilious, liverish, cross-grained
informal snappish, snappy, chippy, on a short fuse, short-fused
British informal shirty, stroppy, narky, ratty, eggy, like a bear with a sore head
North American informal ornery, peckish, soreheaded
Australian/New Zealand informal snaky
informal, dated waxy, miffy
3(Of a machine) working erratically: after a juddering landing the cranky plane eased up the runway...
- He would have had to spend many hours with expensive and cranky machinery in order to make phonetic measurements to correlate with listener judgments.
- The old, cranky generator breaks down with an annoying frequency, severing us from the computer and studio lights.
- The engine, cranky, rusty, out-of-practice, whirred to life. The entire vehicle began to shake, violently at first, then settling.
Derivatives
crankily
- Kassy shook her head crankily, ‘It's nothing!’
- I remembered our argument and frowned crankily.
- I crankily pulled out my emergency credit card.
crankiness
- As a person ages, the signs of depression are much more likely to be dismissed as crankiness or grumpiness.
- The fact that she knows hormones are causing her temporary crankiness doesn't make the feelings any less real, so cut her some slack.
- If you cut back, your body shows signs of caffeine withdrawal, like headaches, crankiness and sleepiness.
Origin
Late 18th century (in the sense 'sickly, in poor health'): perhaps from obsolete (counterfeit) crank 'a rogue feigning sickness', from Dutch or German krank 'sick'.