crusty
/ˈkrʌsti
/adjective (crustier, crustiest)
1Having or acting as a hard outer layer or covering: crusty bread Lake Manyara was ringed by crusty salt deposits...
- But I'm still not eating the crusty bits of bread, even if you held me down and force fed me.
- Alternatively, it is just as nice on its own with a crusty piece of bread.
- There's a choice of Italian cold cuts - you know the list, capicollo to mortadella to prosciutto - served on crusty fresh bread.
Synonyms
crisp, crispy, well baked, well done;
crumbly, brittle, friable
2(Especially of an old person) easily irritated: a crusty old Scots judge...
- Old crusty reporters know that when an official denies anything, it's a good time to begin probing it.
- I guess the movie was targeted towards teenage girls, as opposed to an old crusty man such as myself.
- He's crusty and he's tough, and he stands very firmly for his positions.
Synonyms
irritable, bad-tempered, irascible, grumpy, grouchy, crotchety, tetchy, testy, cantankerous, curmudgeonly, ill-tempered, ill-natured, ill-humoured, peevish, cross, fractious, disagreeable, pettish, crabbed, crabby, waspish, prickly, peppery, touchy, scratchy, splenetic, shrewish, short-tempered, quick-tempered, dyspeptic, choleric, bilious, liverish, cross-grained;
argumentative, quarrelsome, captious
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 cranky, ornery, peckish, soreheaded
Australian/New Zealand informal snaky
noun (also crustie) (plural crusties) informal
A young person who is homeless or travels constantly, has a shabby appearance, and rejects conventional values: she cuts a curious figure amid the crusties and mud-stained tree-huggers...
- There were lots of different sorts of people there - from outwardly completely conventional to complete crusties.
- On TV it's just another spectacle, the usual suspects - students, lefties, crusties, CND, unions, blah, blah, blah - saying the usual things.
- Inside the venue was a mix of aging punks, football supporters, crusties and a smattering of Germans.
Derivatives
crustily
/ adverb ...- To tell the truth, I've always rather enjoyed waking up, crustily or otherwise, and seeing a book collection far better than mine.
crustiness
/ noun ...- An old African buffalo, or a Canadian bison, has, of course, his spells of crustiness, and is then unpleasant, but the boar is always peeved about something or other.
- It produces crustiness, stiffness, disease and dribbling.
- The bruschetta had a great balance of textures and flavors - the crustiness of the toast, the bite and the creaminess of the chickpeas and the snap of the vinegar and oil.