curmudgeon

Syllables: cur·mudg·eonUK/kɜːˈmʌdʒ.ən//kɚˈmʌd͡ʒ.ən/

curmudgeon noun: an ill-tempered person full of stubborn ideas or opinions, often an older man.

Noun

curmudgeon (plural curmudgeons)

An ill-tempered person full of stubborn ideas or opinions, often an older man.
- Near-synonyms: crank, grump; grumpy pants (often childish), sourpuss, grouch
- There's a cranky curmudgeon working at the hospital who gives all the patients and other doctors flak.
Synonyms:

crank, grump, grumpy pants[w:child-directed speech|childish]]>, sourpuss, grouch
(archaic) A miser.

curmudgeon meaning in Urdu and Kannada

Examples of curmudgeon in a sentence

John Doe's old age and stubborn aversion to new ideas make him a curmudgeon of a candidate.
After a while, as cultural debates became more polarized, the editorial tone of the New Criterion went from being charmingly curmudgeon to being bitterly shrill.1996, Jeet Heer, Gravitas, Autumn 1996:
How should I respond, without appearing to be a curmudgeon?2007, The Times:

Synonyms of curmudgeon

crank
grump
grumpy pants[w:child-directed speech|childish]]>
sourpuss
grouch

All synonyms of curmudgeon

Forms of curmudgeon

plural	curmudgeons

Origin of curmudgeon

Numerous folk etymologies exist for this word. An alternative spelling attested in 1600 is cornmudgin, in Holland's translation of Livy, rendering Latin frūmentārius (“corn-merchant”). This has been suggested as the original form of the word, but OED notes that curmudgeon is attested some years before this, concluding that cornmudgin was merely a nonce-word by Holland. The word is attested from the late 1500s in the forms curmudgeon and curmudgen, and during the 17th century in numerous spelling variants, including cormogeon, cormogion, cormoggian, cormudgeon, curmudgion, curmuggion, curmudgin, curr-mudgin, curre-megient.

Words formed from curmudgeon

Words that rhyme with curmudgeon

Questions about curmudgeon

What does curmudgeon mean?: Curmudgeon means an ill-tempered person full of stubborn ideas or opinions, often an older man.
What is curmudgeon in Urdu?: Curmudgeon in Urdu is بدمزاج, حریص, کنجوس. See Curmudgeon meaning in Urdu.
How do you use curmudgeon in a sentence?: John Doe's old age and stubborn aversion to new ideas make him a curmudgeon of a candidate.
What part of speech is curmudgeon?: Curmudgeon is a noun.
How do you pronounce curmudgeon?: Curmudgeon is pronounced /kɜːˈmʌdʒ.ən/ (UK).
What is the plural of curmudgeon?: The plural of curmudgeon is curmudgeons.

Words near curmudgeon in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: curmudgeon (page history and authors); curmudgeon (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); curmudgeon (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-curmudgeon.ogg.

Cite this entry: “curmudgeon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/curmudgeon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.