CRABBED • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Crabbed

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adjective

Crabbed adj.

Characterized by or manifesting, sourness, peevishness, or moroseness; harsh; cross; cynical; applied to feelings, disposition, or manners. "Crabbed age and youth can not live together."

Characterized by harshness or roughness; unpleasant; applied to things; as, a crabbed taste.

Obscure; difficult; perplexing; trying; as, a crabbed author. "Crabbed eloquence." "How charming is divine philosophy! Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose."

Cramped; irregular; as, crabbed handwriting.

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Etymology of 'Crabbed'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Crabbed" Quotes from Famous Books

... vigor, integrity of character, and legal ability had secured for him a nomination to the bench of the Supreme Court by President Adams, which, however, the Democratic Senate failed to confirm. Kept in the shade by Henry Clay, he became somewhat crabbed, but his was one of the noblest intellects of his generation. His persuasive eloquence, his sound judgment, his knowledge of the law, his lucid manner of stating facts, and his complete grasp of every case which he examined had made him a power in the ...

— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... lowering his collar Nibet's crabbed visage glowered on the two women: it was the ...

— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre

... attracts life to itself, Padua is a dead city with an almost deserted air. Its streets, bordered by two rows of low arcades, in nowise recall the elegant and charming architecture of Venice. The heavy, massive structures have a serious, somewhat crabbed aspect, and its somber porticos in the lower stories of the houses resemble black ...

— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various

... any proof that it is forged?' said Lord Walwyn, aware that handwriting was too difficult an art, and far too crabbed, among persons of Osbert's class, for there to ...

— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rendered, this wasn't easy to believe when one remembered the tradition of social conservatism among French gentlefolk. Still, it was true: Duchemin of the open road was bidden to dine en famille at the Chateau de Montalais. In his pocket lay the invitation, penned in the crabbed antique hand of Madame de Sevenie and fetched to the hotel by a servitor quite as crabbed and antique: Monsieur Duchemin would confer a true pleasure by enabling the ladies of the chateau to testify, even so inadequately, to their sense of obligation, etc.; with a postscript ...

— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

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