grumpy
/ˈɡrʌmpi
/adjective (grumpier, grumpiest)
Bad-tempered and sulky: his performance as the grumpy gateman he’s grumpy because he hasn’t heard from you...
- Read a selection of past interviews and you're left with a picture of a truculent, grumpy old curmudgeon.
- Like all of us, he could be grumpy and cantankerous, but he was never mean-spirited in deed or thought.
- The day-time guard at the entrance to our village is the most grumpy and surly man.
Synonyms
bad-tempered, ill-tempered, short-tempered, crotchety, crabby, crabbed, tetchy, testy, waspish, prickly, peppery, touchy, irritable, irascible, crusty, cantankerous, curmudgeonly, bearish, surly, churlish, ill-natured, ill-humoured, peevish, cross, as cross as two sticks, fractious, disagreeable, pettish;
having got out of bed on the wrong side
informal grouchy, snappy, snappish, 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, soreheaded
Australian/New Zealand informal snaky
informal, dated miffy, waxy
Derivatives
grumpily
/ adverb ...- I take my parsnips grumpily and bid him ‘good evening’.
- Then the phone rang a little before 8 am, so I grumpily picked it up.
- But he was not in a talkative mood and chomped his way grumpily through the meal, responding with grunts and monosyllables to all attempts to engage him in conversation.
grumpiness
/ noun ...- As a person ages, the signs of depression are much more likely to be dismissed as crankiness or grumpiness.
- The last couple of Christmases I spent with Papa his seeming grumpiness annoyed me but now I realize he just wanted the hype to go away.
- It would be refreshing if he were to concentrate on the brighter sides of human behaviour and not dwell on dubious national traits to vent his grumpiness with the world around him.