ill-tempered
Britishadjective
Other Word Forms
Explanation
If your mom is ill-tempered, she's cranky, or in a really bad mood. It's probably smarter to ask your cheerful grandma for a ride to school, instead of your ill-tempered mom. Whenever you find yourself in an irritable, grouchy mood, you're ill-tempered. A really good kindergarten teacher will save his ill-tempered remarks for when he goes home after school, and an ill-tempered high school volleyball coach may end up with players quitting the team. Everyone's ill-tempered from time to time — the word combines ill, "bad," and tempered, from temper, or "mood," from the Latin root temperare, "be moderate."
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.
This hasn't been a particularly ill-tempered contest, and there aren't vast ideological differences between Joe Fagan and Michael Marra.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2026
So when Nick Woltemade put Newcastle ahead in the first half of an ill-tempered game, in which Arsenal also had a penalty overturned by VAR, the away fans may have feared the worst.
From BBC ● May 19, 2026
Ruskin’s ill-tempered insistence that drawing is an exercise of virtue was alien to Church’s character, but the same conjunction of extreme naturalism and a sort of vague pantheism is always present.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
In the Dodgers’ World Series run last season, Treinen was as vicious as an ill-tempered Doberman, going 2-0 with three saves, a 2.19 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 12 1/3 innings.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 14, 2025
“I should take him, even on my slight acquaintance, to be an ill-tempered man.”
From "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
