as in complainers
an irritable and complaining person
only a curmudgeon would object to the nursing home's holiday decorations
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Recent Examples of curmudgeons
Come to think of it, a few especially forceful personalities fueled much of the clashing college curmudgeons economy.
—
Joe Rexrode, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2026
Nostalgic curmudgeons will tell you the food’s gone downhill, but the wings taste better than ever.
—Jay Deitcher, Time, 6 Aug. 2025
Joe Rexrode, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2026
Nostalgic curmudgeons will tell you the food’s gone downhill, but the wings taste better than ever.
—Jay Deitcher, Time, 6 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for curmudgeons
Noun
-
If family needs cause drama, set kind boundaries and explain them to any complainers.—
Tarot.com,
New York Daily News,
2 Jan. 2026
-
The faculty experience has been that administrations often side with the complainers.—
Louis Menand,
New Yorker,
26 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Whale falls, which occur when a whale carcass sinks to the ocean floor, create temporary ecosystems that feed octopuses, sharks, crabs, microorganisms and more.—
Ryan Brennan,
Kansas City Star,
13 Feb. 2026
-
Either way, be sure to keep an eye out for the reserve’s native animal population, including fish, crabs, turtles, herons, flamingos, foxes, and dugongs, cousins to the North American manatee.—
Condé Nast Traveler,
Condé Nast Traveler,
26 Jan. 2026
Noun
-
All but three of the bears were killed with a rifle.—
CBS Miami Team,
CBS News,
9 Feb. 2026
-
Many of the big software platforms – Salesforce, now under a 15 P/E or ServiceNow, with a record-high 5% free-cash-flow yield – have a decent counter-argument to the bears.—
Michael Santoli,
CNBC,
9 Feb. 2026
Noun
-
There’s a cast of wanderers, visionaries, and itinerants, the self-educated and self-published, a long lineage of cranks and outcasts, mostly penurious, always opinionated, stretching away into the mists of pseudohistory.—
Hari Kunzru,
Harpers Magazine,
27 Jan. 2026
-
In academic and intellectual circles, defenders of market economics were few and far between and widely viewed as cranks or worse.—
The Editorial Board,
Oc Register,
23 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Curmudgeons.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/curmudgeons. Accessed 15 Feb. 2026.
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