cantankerous

adjective

a cantankerous old man:

bad-tempered, irascible, irritable, grumpy, grouchy, crotchety, tetchy, testy, crusty, curmudgeonly, ill-tempered, ill-natured, ill-humored, peevish, cross, fractious, disagreeable, pettish, crabbed, crabby, waspish, prickly, peppery, touchy, scratchy, splenetic, shrewish, short-tempered, hot-tempered, quick-tempered, dyspeptic, choleric, bilious, liverish, cross-grained;

argumentative, quarrelsome, uncooperative, contrary, perverse, difficult, awkward;

British as cross as two sticks;

informal snappish, snappy, chippy, on a short fuse, short-fused;

British, informal shirty, stroppy, narky, ratty, eggy, like a bear with a sore head;

North American, informal cranky, ornery, peckish, soreheaded;

Australian, New Zealand, informal snaky;

informal , dated waxy, miffy.

▷antonyms good-natured, affable.