Cantankerous means bad-tempered and quick to argue. A cantankerous old man, cantankerous neighbour, getting cantankerous.
It is almost affectionate and is used mostly of the elderly, which is what separates it from hostile. The word belongs to somebody who argues out of habit rather than out of anger.
1adjectivecantankerousBad-tempered and quick to argue.
“Our cantankerous old neighbour complains about everything, from our music to our cat.”
cantankerous is a quality.
Perhaps an alteration of an older word, formed under the influence of contentious and rancorous.
Perhaps derived from earlier contenkerous, from contentious + rancorous.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA