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Feb 7, 2013 This week's theme Words to describe people This week's words impetuous uxorious implacable cantankerous impudent Discuss Feedback RSS/XML A.Word.A.Day with Anu Garg cantankerous PRONUNCIATION: (kan-TANG-kuhr-uhs) MEANING: adjective: Difficult to deal with: ill-tempered, quarrelsome. ETYMOLOGY: Of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Middle English contak (contention). Earliest documented use: 1736. USAGE: "Justin Wolff makes clear that Thomas Hart Benton had a difficult if not volcanic personality. Among the adjectives he uses to describe him are surly, belligerent, arrogant, pugnacious, combative, gruff, inflexible, cantankerous, argumentative, churlish, cruel, and blunt." Terry Hartle; Thomas Hart Benton: A Life; The Christian Science Monitor (Boston); May 21, 2012. Explore "cantankerous" in the Visual Thesaurus. A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

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