as in cantankerous
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cross-grained
Adjective
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Her cantankerous dad undoubtedly gets the best zingers.—
Jon O'Brien,
IndieWire,
10 June 2025 -
Ten-year-old Louisa is walking on a beach on the Japanese coast at night with her father, a cantankerous college instructor named Serk.—
Sam Worley,
Vulture,
2 June 2025
Adjective
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Befriending Cressida Cowper is a respectable exercise in recognizing biases, but the pair’s interactions are as disagreeable as those bangs.—
Zoe Haylock,
Vulture,
16 May 2024
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If Alex has a bit more credibility, not being as intractable in her positions, both have a tendency to come off as disagreeable in their incessant bickering and self-righteousness.—
Charles McNulty,
Los Angeles Times,
26 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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Trying to Kill Each Other' And Walken is marvelous — querulous, petty, cruel — as the Emperor.—
Tom Gliatto,
Peoplemag,
29 Feb. 2024
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Instead, Gerwig and Baumbach promote querulous sloganeering.—
Armond White,
National Review,
19 July 2023
Adjective
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Under Nézet-Séguin, the musicians do the job spectacularly, releasing all those bilious harmonies and seething rhythms in an unbroken two-hour spasm of excitement.—
Justin Davidson,
Vulture,
30 Apr. 2025
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And Emily’s side of the family isn't much better, represented by her mean, bilious aunt (Allison Janney, herself no slouch in the hissing-authority department) and her boozy mother (Elizabeth Perkins, replacing Jean Smart from the first film).—
Tom Gliatto,
People.com,
30 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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But when Chief, the ornery stray, gets overruled into helping his pack assist a boy who’s crash-landed on their trash island, Cranston really nails it.—
Joe Reid,
Vulture,
12 June 2025
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The ornery character actor Richard Kind is his announcer, barking non sequiturs from behind a podium.—
David Sims,
The Atlantic,
7 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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Commerce City police helped return a surly rattlesnake to the wild this month after a resident found the venomous reptile coiled in their home’s driveway.—
Max Levy,
Denver Post,
31 May 2025
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The third reason to slip the surly bonds of Earth is that our air is extremely good at shielding us from many wavelengths of light our eyes cannot see.—
Phil Plait,
Scientific American,
29 May 2025
Adjective
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Lawrence’s new mother Grace is anything but as an irascible New Yorker who moves to rural Montana with her son and husband Jackson, played by Robert Pattinson.—
Thomas Page,
CNN Money,
24 May 2025
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Seeing irascible old coots soften when in the presence of cherubic little nuggets gets me every time.—
Kimberly Roots,
TVLine,
20 May 2025
Adjective
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On a less peevish note: The entry is making its New York Times Crossword debut.—
Sam Corbin,
New York Times,
14 May 2025
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Rojas’s recollections weren’t peevish—fine work was produced under these conditions.—
Ian Parker,
The New Yorker,
20 Jan. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Cross-grained.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cross-grained. Accessed 18 Jun. 2025.
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