"cross-tempered, irritable," 1807, from crank (n.) + -y (2). The evolution would be from earlier senses of crank, such as "a twist or fanciful turn of speech" (1590s); "inaccessible hole or crevice" (1560s). Grose's 1787 "Provincial Glossary" has "Cranky. Ailing sickly from the dutch crank, sick," and identifies it as a Northern word. Jamieson's Scottish dictionary (1825) has crank in a secondary sense of "hard, difficult," as in crank word, "a word hard to be understood;" crank job, "a work attended with difficulty, or requiring ingenuity in the execution." Related: Crankily; crankiness.
Ben. Dang it, don't you spare him--A cross grain'd cranky toad as ever crawl'd. (etc.) [Richard Cumberland, "Lovers Resolutions," Act I, 1813]
实用例句
1. The Front has often been dismissed as a cranky fringe group.
艺术家联盟常被认为是一个古怪的边缘组织。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Vegetarianism has shed its cranky image.
素食主义者已经摆脱了其古怪的形象。
来自柯林斯例句
3. It was a long trek, and Jack and I both started to get cranky after about ten minutes.
那是一次长途跋涉，我和杰克走了约10分钟便开始烦躁不安起来。
来自柯林斯例句
4. On the loudspeaker his voice turned dull and cranky.
在扬声器中,他的声音变得沉闷,听起来别扭.
来自辞典例句
5. Seen was particularly cranky and quarreled with another little boy.
