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grumpy

UK/ˈɡɹʌmpi/US/ˈɡɹʌmpi/
adjectiveB1Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,460 of 15,258leans spokeninformal · an editor’s judgement

Grumpy means in a bad mood and complaining about everything. Nothing is quite right, and you will be hearing about it.

It is a gentle word for a mild fault, and it is one of the few insults you can use affectionately about somebody you love. It suits mornings, hunger and old age especially — a grumpy old man is practically a fixed phrase. The noun grump means both the mood and the person having it. Grouchy and cranky are the close cousins, and the underlying verb, to grumble, is the sound of it.

Definitions of grumpy

  1. 1adjectivegrumpyBad-tempered and inclined to complain.B1

    “He is always grumpy before breakfast.”

Also accepted in games: grouchy

Where it comes from

From grump + -y.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Feelings & Character, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 6 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

grumpy in the wild

  • Six months later, Carter suddenly becomes grumpy, and even more elderly, causing Peter to take him back to his old business and bring him back to normal.

    Grumpy Old Man

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.