cranky
1 Americanadjective
-
crankier,
comparative
-
crankiest
superlative
-
ill-tempered; grouchy; cross.
I'm always cranky when I don't get enough sleep.
- Synonyms:
- perverse, cantankerous, crotchety
-
eccentric; queer.
-
shaky; unsteady; out of order.
-
full of bends or windings; crooked.
-
British Dialect. sickly; in unsound or feeble condition; infirm.
adjective
-
crankier,
comparative
-
crankiest
superlative
adjective
-
informal eccentric
-
informal fussy and bad-tempered
-
shaky; out of order
-
full of bends and turns
-
dialect unwell
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of cranky1
First recorded in 1780–90; crank 1 + -y 1
Origin of cranky2
Explanation
Cranky is one of those words that sounds a little bit like what it means: one who is cranky is easily annoyed, irritable, or testy. My sister gets cranky when she doesn't eat. If you want to have a good day, keep her well fed. A cranky person doesn't get furious or outraged, they're just easier than usual to annoy—things get on their nerves more quickly than they do for other people. You could think of someone who's cranky as having actual crank. When they're hungry, tired or otherwise worn out that crank is easy to turn—it doesn't take much to make them mad. A person in a good mood, though, has a crank that isn't as easy to turn. That's because they're not cranky.
Vocabulary lists containing cranky
Rules
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Negative Words to Describe People
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It’s possible Trump was just tired and cranky.
From Salon ● Jul. 14, 2026
“You can certainly see the market get cranky about that.”
From MarketWatch ● May 20, 2026
If it weren’t for the long-ago gift of some 3,000 gorgeous sylvan acres from a cranky jailbird with a civic conscience and a large and very taxable real estate portfolio, we wouldn’t have Griffith Park.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2026
"If you get cranky with family, just know it's because you're tired," she told them at one point.
From BBC ● May 6, 2026
“He still loves me like a son. He has to. He’s cranky because, well...Anna, could you come here a sec, honey?”
From "The Last Last-Day-of-Summer" by Lamar Giles
"You get older, you get crankier, and comfort becomes more important. I think it's as simple as that," Pitt told Esquire in an interview published Thursday.
From Fox News ● Sep. 3, 2021
I never felt older nor crankier than when watching these “digital natives” stumble through the daily rituals of adulthood.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 17, 2018
Then there are delays, which make air travelers crankier but which actually work in favor of airport retail.
From Slate ● Sep. 7, 2017
And when that fails, the result is typically a contest to determine who can be crankier.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 14, 2016
“Not everything is great,” I murmur, feeling crankier and crankier.
From "Towers Falling" by Jewell Parker Rhodes
There’s Ba humbugi, a Fiji snail referencing one of literature’s crankiest men.
From Science Magazine ● May 10, 2022
“Sometimes I can add something from a younger perspective,” Ms. Rose said, referring to America’s crankiest judge as Nana.
From New York Times ● Oct. 25, 2021
He’s hosting a dinner for the rest of the Freys, an uncharacteristically spontaneous celebration from one of Game of Thrones’ crankiest old bastards.
From The Verge ● Jul. 17, 2017
Part of this animosity stems from McCain’s status as the crankiest of the Senate’s many cranky old men.
From Salon ● Jul. 16, 2015
She’d even joined the toad racing team and gotten stuck with the slowest, crankiest toad of the lot.
From "Witchlings" by Claribel A. Ortega
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
