DOUG'S WORD OF THE WEEK

Cantankerous / kan-tang-ker-uhs / adjective: 1. Ill-tempered and quarrelsome; disagreeable. 2. Difficult to handle .

Notes & Etymology: From the Middle English word conteckour, meaning troublemaker. A cantankerous person is one who is always upset about something and looking for a fight. One of the most cantankerous fictional characters in the history of Literature is Ebeneezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Usage: “Garland found the kitchen's oven to be quite cantankerous, but he and his fellow cooks eventually managed to get it to produce a halfway decent tray of meat turnovers."
Laurie J. Marks; Earth Logic; May 31, 2005.