What's the difference between cantankerous and grumpy?

Cantankerous


Definition:

  • (a.) Perverse; contentious; ugly; malicious.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) While the Spielberg of popular myth is Mr Nice Guy, Lean was known as an obsessive, cantankerous tyrant who didn't much like actors and was only truly happy locked away in the editing suite.
  • (2) He owed his late-flourishing film career to Branagh, appearing in a string of his movies: as Bardolph in Henry V (1989), Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing (1993), the old blind man in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994), a cantankerous old thespian in A Midwinter's Tale (1995), Polonius in Hamlet (1996) and Sir Nathaniel in the musical Love's Labour's Lost (2000).
  • (3) Ken could be magnificently cantankerous, but he was generous to a fault and loved nothing more than to inspire young film-makers.
  • (4) Her mother the Duchess of Kent had wanted to call her Georgiana Charlotte Augusta Alexandrina Victoria, but was overruled by a cantankerous Prince Regent, the future George IV, who dictated during the ceremony that she be called Alexandrina Victoria instead in tribute to the Russian Tsar Alexander I.
  • (5) In my cosseted complacency, I had mistakenly believed that modern Scotland was a good place to practise the curious rituals of my cantankerous, old Catholic faith.
  • (6) And what a face it is: that gnarled, acne-pocked, gin-blossomed lunar landscape of ornery venom and intermittent soulfulness, out of which comes that cantankerous Texan bark.
  • (7) The ITV bosshas become more and more cantankerous in his dealings with the media over the past few months as the broadcaster has struggled in the advertising recession and then seen its search for a chief executive or chairman to replace him hit by a series of setbacks.
  • (8) I had spent my life wondering if I would ever find the elderly Jewish actor capable of "doing" the cantankerous, passionate, funny old characters of my early life.
  • (9) No sudden appearances from David Starkey, looming out of the historical gloaming like the ghost of a cantankerous 1930s dinner lady.
  • (10) He was called cantankerous, which he probably took as a badge of honour.
  • (11) Signature video The first Unnecessary Otter skit, introducing us to Hayes playing a sweet children's TV presenter with the aforementioned cantankerous Scottish sidekick.
  • (12) In 1948, the cantankerous but influential scholar FR Leavis crowned Austen mother of his great tradition of the English novel.
  • (13) Think of him as a cantankerous old kung-fu master whose tough love hides a deep-seated desire for his students to prosper.
  • (14) Like Charles Dickens, Twain achieved immense success with his first book, became his nation's most famous and best-loved author, and has remained a national treasure ever since – America's most archetypal writer, an instantly recognisable, white-haired, white-suited, folksy, cantankerous icon.
  • (15) In conversation, he exudes a mix of warmth and cantankerousness, idealism about humanity's potential and a weariness with the modern world – at least outside the eminently sensible shire in which he lives.
  • (16) Godard is the great, implacably cantankerous and difficult warrior from the new wave generation, one that still makes its mark at Cannes.
  • (17) The more cantankerous Senator Ted Cruz called it “Obamacare for the internet”.
  • (18) He’s cantankerous and eccentric but you don’t get to make a difference if you are a shrinking violet.
  • (19) Emerging from the gloom is Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss, excellent), a preoccupied, sensitive Sydney detective returning to her hometown to nurse her cantankerous mother, only to find herself drawn into an investigation into the abuse of a pregnant 12-year-old girl.
  • (20) What some saw as an eccentric masterpiece, others dismissed as an eccentric mess – a wilfully obscure meditation on the nature of globalisation from a cantankerous old genius who took a perverse delight in bamboozling his audience.

Grumpy


Definition:

  • (a.) Surly; dissatisfied; grouty.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) And those who get their kicks from purloining stuff that they’re expected to pay for were especially grumpy.
  • (2) When Michael is naughty she threatens to hand him over to "the policeman" and she sends grumpy Jane to exile inside a cracked Doulton bowl.
  • (3) a) synovial bursa ( schleimbeutel ) b) sneeze guard ( Spukschutz ) c) snotty-nosed brat – literally snot spoon ( rotzloeffel ) d) grumpy bastard – literally lump of vomit ( kotzbrocken ) 4,000 Jet-setters complain of a) Jetleg b) Jetleck c) Jetlag d) Jetlack 8,000 Who, if a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, would definitely not call the Joker?
  • (4) Counting down to a 3D-printed Grumpy Cat in 3... 2... 1...
  • (5) Do co-efficients simply take no notice of real and meaningful competitive results, or am I just grumpy this morning?"
  • (6) Despite the pro-AV leader, Ed Miliband, having stuck his neck out a few times for the yeses, belligerent turns by grumpy old stagers such as John Reid and David Blunkett have created the impression that the people's party has no interest in giving the people more of a say.
  • (7) As a result, they feel worse off, and understandably grumpy.
  • (8) And the Doctor is more than ready to welcome her back, said Smith, referring to the Christmas episode in which an increasingly grumpy Time Lord seemed unable to get over the loss of previous companions Amy and Rory .
  • (9) Reckless, therefore, to give away an earned advantage this week, when the journalists are getting increasingly grumpy about having the microphone physically taken away from them (the Tories on Tuesday) and being jeered at by party supporters (Ukip on Wednesday and Labour on Monday, despite Ed Miliband’s plea to be polite and welcoming.)
  • (10) The Labour leader will have surprised those who thought he was simply a grumpy old political boss.
  • (11) Eventually, a 12-year-old girl called Chyrstal – a name that surely wouldn't exist except for in a Lifetime Christmas movie – takes Grumpy home.
  • (12) And it is the meme, or rather one particular meme, that is the prime cause of Dawkins's current grumpiness.
  • (13) Grumpy neither denied nor confirmed the claims that some bodies had been moved to Donetsk.
  • (14) Net neutrality activists celebrate internet victory with grumpy cat parade Read more Lamb disagrees that the proposal wouldn’t be in shareholders’ best interests.
  • (15) If they're simply difficult, grumpy or selfish in the way male characters are, they provoke outrage and astonishment in the way male characters never do (hello, Lena Dunham.).
  • (16) On the surface, the grumpy pacifist iconoclast had little in common with the war hero author of Seven Pillars of Wisdom - apart from a weakness for inordinately long prefaces.
  • (17) Rudisha may be the greatest 800m in history, but even champions have to put up with grumpy dads.
  • (18) One self-confessed "grumpy old man" called it "nanny state nonsense".
  • (19) However, Rifkind’s own recent privacy issues had made that tricky; empty-chairing himself might have set an awkward precedent that the prime minister would not have appreciated, so he settled for looking grumpy and morose while Hazel Blears ran the show.
  • (20) It was only the hardcore English left, long after the celebrations had ended, hungover, bleary and grumpy.