crabbedness

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crabbed

(krăbd, krăb′ĭd)

adj.

1. Irritable and perverse in disposition; ill-tempered.

2. Difficult to understand; complicated.

3. Difficult to read; cramped: crabbed handwriting.

[Middle English, from crabbe, crab (influenced by crab); see crab¹.]

crab′bed·ly adv.

crab′bed·ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Noun

crabbedness - a disposition to be ill-tempered

crabbiness, crossness

ill nature - a disagreeable, irritable, or malevolent disposition

Translations

uggia

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References in periodicals archive ?

crabbedness verging to obscurity, and carelessness of expression, ...

Browning and the intelligent uses of anger in The Ring and the Book

In any case, Milton's language as he describes the dance in lines 620-24 becomes noticeably more intricate and intervolved than usual; the syntax seems to imitate the angelic indirections in its twisted irregularity, and this grammatical crabbedness is then under-scored by the contrasting sweet regularity of the last two and a half lines (625-27), which turn from the convolutions of the dance to the charming tones of harmony divine.