Ill-natured, quarrelsome, spiteful. Possibly of American origin, though early examples are English. It occurs in ‘The Rivals,’ 1775. (N.E.D.)

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1772.  There’s not a more bitter cantanckerous road in all Christendom.—Goldsmith, ‘She Stoops to Conquer,’ ii., 1. (N.E.D.)

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1854.  [He is] driven by his wife, just as our old rooster is driven about by that cantankerous crabbed Dorking hen.—J. W. Spaulding, Weekly Oregonian, Dec. 23.

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1862.  

        There was a Wild Warrior called Edwin,
Who behaved like an impolite Bedouin,
      Persisting to kick
      ’Gainst McClellan the “brick,”
That futile, cantankerous Edwin.
N.Y. Express, n.d. (One of the many gibes at Secretary Stanton current during the War.)    

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