Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use cranky in a sentence

17 example sentences · adjective

Cranky means not in good working condition; defective, faulty. Example: “He got home from a long day at work tired and cranky.”

Examples of cranky by meaning

adjectiveNot in good working condition; defective, faulty.

  • One was small, one was cranky, and two were old, waterlogged, and leaky.1914, Theodore Roosevelt, Through the Brazilian Wilderness: The River of Doubt
  • Margaret Cerullo gave a rousing speech, despite the pesky interruptions of a cranky sound system.1987 December 6, Kris Kleindienst, “Sex On The Table”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 21, page 6

adjectiveGrouchy, grumpy, irritable; easily upset.

  • He got home from a long day at work tired and cranky.

adjectiveNot in perfect mental working order; eccentric, peculiar.

  • Uncle Esau is as cranky as hell, and a peculiar old duck, but I think he'll like a fine upstanding young man as big as you be.1934 December, Robert E. Howard, “The Road to Bear Creek”, in Action Stories

adjectiveSynonym of crank (“of a ship: liable to capsize because of poorly stowed cargo or insufficient ballast”).

  • a cranky vessel

More sentences with cranky

  • There's a cranky curmudgeon working at the hospital who gives all the patients and other doctors flak.From the entry curmudgeon
  • The director rehearsed the cast incessantly in the days leading up to opening night, and as a result they were tired and cranky when it arrived.From the entry rehearse
  • Cranky Kong: 'NOW GET OUT THERE AND GIVE THOSE LITTLE DRUM GUYS WHAT FOR.2010, Retro Studios, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Nintendo, Wii, level/area: Cranky Kong's shop. From the entry what for
  • Everything haywire, including cranky pack horse which kept getting off trail.1928, Horace Marden Albright, Frank J. Taylor, chapter 1, in "Oh, Ranger!": A Book about the National Parks, page 1. From the entry haywire
  • I know I'll be fearfully cranky by the time I'm sixty.1909, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 27, in Anne of Avonlea. From the entry blue pill
  • Klinsmann had to know from observing the cranky screwface Dempsey displayed in public that this was no moonbeam of a player.2014, George Vecsey, Eight World Cups: My Journey through the Beauty and Dark Side of Soccer, Times Books, →ISBN, page 249. From the entry screwface
  • If your unnapped child is fairly civil, composed, and not too cranky at bed- time, he probably doesn't need naps anymore.2009, Michelle Nicholasen, Barbara O'Neal, I Brake for Meltdowns, page 100. From the entry unnapped
  • If Facebook chooses to remain a holdout, it will not be as the head of a countercoalition but as a cranky recluse.2007 November 4, Randall Stross, “Why Google Turned Into a Social Butterfly”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 28 Jun…. From the entry holdout
  • The medical examiner was behind on autopsies and cranky, so we didn't even know if the old guy in the pool was a homicide.2004, Jon Talton, Dry Heat, →ISBN, page 40. From the entry homicide
  • But evolutionary psychology, as it has been disseminated across mainstream consciousness, is a cranky and despotic Cyclops, its single eye glaring through an overwhelmingly masculinist lens.1999 March 19, Natalie Angier, The Guardian. From the entry masculinist
  • I entitled the piece "Dorky", dork being slang for a person who does not belong to popular groups, usually an outsider, an odd person, sometimes inept, other times cranky.1962, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Last year at Marienbad, page 167. From the entry dorky
  • What makes Don’t Look Up such a movie of the moment also makes it less of a functional movie at all, and more of a cranky, doomy, occasionally funny headspace.2021 December 7, Jesse Hassenger, “Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence cope with disaster in the despairing satire Don’t Look Up”, in…. From the entry doomy

Meaning of cranky

  1. adjective Not in good working condition; defective, faulty.
  2. adjective Grouchy, grumpy, irritable; easily upset.
  3. adjective Not in perfect mental working order; eccentric, peculiar.

Full definition of cranky

Questions about cranky in a sentence

How do you use cranky in a sentence?
Cranky is used as an adjective. For example: “He got home from a long day at work tired and cranky.”
What is a short sentence with cranky?
“a cranky vessel”
What does cranky mean?
Cranky means not in good working condition; defective, faulty.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cranky (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use cranky in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/cranky. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.