cantankerous
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 July 2025
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 5, 2025 is:
cantankerous • \kan-TANK-uh-rus\ • adjective
A cantankerous person is often angry and annoyed, and a cantankerous animal or thing is difficult or irritating to deal with.
// Although the former postman was regarded by some townspeople as a scowling, cantankerous old coot, he was beloved by neighborhood children, to whom he would regularly hand out butterscotch candies from his front stoop with a twinkle in his eye.
Examples:
“The film ‘Hard Truths,’ which opens in New York on Friday and nationwide in January, centers on [Marianne] Jean-Baptiste’s Pansy, a cantankerous middle-aged woman who spits venom at unsuspecting shop assistants, bald babies, her 20-something son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) and her dentist, among others.” — Simran Hans, The New York Times, 9 Dec. 2024
Did you know?
A person described as cantankerous may find it more difficult than most to turn that frown upside down, while a cantankerous mule/jalopy/etc. is difficult to deal with—it may not turn in your desired direction. It’s been speculated that cantankerous is a product of the obsolete word contack, meaning “contention,” under the influence of a pair of “difficult” words still in use: rancorous and cankerous. Rancorous brings the anger and “bitter deep-seated ill will” (as rancor can be understood to mean), and cankerous brings the perhaps understandable foul mood: a cankerous person suffers from painful sores—that is, cankers.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Word of the Day podcast for July 5th. |
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| 0:22.7 | pictures you've been eyeing. Shop in store via the app or online at matelan.com.uk now. Tis and C-N-T-A-N-K-E-R-U-S. |
| 0:39.4 | Cantankerous is an adjective. |
| 0:41.4 | A cantankerous person is often angry and annoyed. |
| 0:44.8 | And a cantankerous animal or thing is difficult or irritating to deal with. |
| 0:49.3 | Here's the word used in a sentence from the New York Times. |
| 0:52.8 | The film Hard Truths, which opens in New York |
| 0:56.0 | on Friday and nationwide in January, centers on Marianne Jean-Baptiste's Pansy, the cantankerous |
| 1:02.8 | middle-aged woman who spits venom at unsuspecting shop assistants, bald babies, her 20-something son, |
| 1:10.0 | Moses, and her dentist, among others. |
| 1:13.4 | A person described as cantankerous may find it more difficult than most to turn that frown |
| 1:19.2 | upside down, while a cantankerous mule or jalopy is difficult to deal with. It may not turn in |
| 1:26.1 | your desired direction. It's been speculated that the word |
| 1:29.4 | cantankerous is a product of the obsolete word contact, meaning contention, under the influence of |
| 1:35.6 | a pair of difficult words still in use, rancorous and cankerus. Ranker brings the anger and bitter, |
| 1:42.8 | deep-seated ill-will, as rancor can be understood to mean, |
| 1:47.6 | and cankerous brings the perhaps understandable foul mood, a cankerous person suffers from painful sores, that is, cankers. |
| 1:56.2 | With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski. |
| 2:03.5 | Visit miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups. |
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