Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 5, 2025 is: cantankerous \kan-TANK-uh-rus\ adjective A cantankerous person is often angry and annoyed, and a cantankerous animal or thing is difficult or irritating to deal with. // Although the former postman was regarded by some townspeople as a scowling, cantankerous old coot, he was beloved by neighborhood children, to whom he would regularly hand out butterscotch candies from his front stoop with a twinkle in his eye. [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cantankerous) Examples: “The film ‘Hard Truths,’ which opens in New York on Friday and nationwide in January, centers on [Marianne] Jean-Baptiste’s Pansy, a cantankerous middle-aged woman who spits venom at unsuspecting shop assistants, bald babies, her 20-something son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) and her dentist, among others.” — Simran Hans, The New York Times, 9 Dec. 2024 Did you know? A person described as cantankerous may find it more difficult than most to turn that frown upside down, while a cantankerous mule/jalopy/etc. is difficult to deal with—it may not turn in your desired direction. It’s been speculated that cantankerous is a product of the obsolete word contack, meaning “contention,” under the influence of a pair of “difficult” words still in use: rancorous and cankerous. [Rancorous](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rancorous) brings the anger and “bitter deep-seated ill will” (as [rancor](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rancor) can be understood to mean), and [cankerous](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cankerous) brings the perhaps understandable foul mood: a cankerous person suffers from painful sores—that is, [cankers](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/canker).