ill-tempered

British  

adjective

1. showing bad temper; irritable

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Other Word Forms

• ill-temperedly
  adverb

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

See Examples For:

ill-tempered

The name comes from a one-minute skit in which a son politely refuses a bowl of gourd soup from his mother but eventually he gets blamed for being ill-tempered.

From BBC ● Jun. 13, 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

But the no-nonsense judge presiding over these often ill-tempered proceedings is desperate to stop them turning into a "public inquiry".

From BBC ● Jan. 17, 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

He drifts off, leaving me more ill-tempered than before.

From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir

Related Words

• cantankerous
• grumpy
• irascible
• testy