bad-tempered

[ bad-tem-perd ]
See synonyms for bad-tempered on Thesaurus.com
adjective
  1. cross; cranky; surly; ill-tempered: a bad-tempered person.

Origin of bad-tempered

1
First recorded in 1920–25

Words Nearby bad-tempered

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use bad-tempered in a sentence

  • A bad-tempered woman is described as a "vixen," or female fox; a lazy person as a "drone," or the bee which does no work.

    Stories That Words Tell Us | Elizabeth O'Neill
  • "He is always bad-tempered when we come to the Court," she said.

    Mary Gray | Katharine Tynan
  • He's a bad-tempered brute, and I wonder the squire keeps it.

    A Final Reckoning | G. A. Henty

British Dictionary definitions for bad-tempered

bad-tempered

adjective
  1. angry, irritable, or ungracious

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012