ILL-NATURED • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Ill-natured

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/ɪl-nˈeɪtʃərd/ Listen

adjective

Ill-natured adj.

Of habitual bad temper; having an unpleasant disposition; surly; disagreeable; cross; peevish; fractious; crabbed; of people; as, an ill-natured person; an ill-natured disagreeable old man. Opposite of good-natured. (Narrower terms: argumentative, contentious, disputatious, disputative, litigious: atrabilious, bilious, dyspeptic, liverish: bristly, prickly, snappish, splenetic, waspish: cantankerous, crotchety, ornery: choleric, irascible, hotheaded, hot-headed, hot-tempered, quick-tempered, short-tempered: crabbed, crabby, cross, fussy, fussbudgety, grouchy, grumpy, bad-tempered, ill-tempered: cranky, fractious, irritable, peevish, peckish, pettish, petulant, testy, tetchy, techy: crusty, curmudgeonly, gruff, ill-humored, ill-humoured: dour, glowering, glum, moody, morose, saturnine, sour, sullen: feisty, touchy: huffish, sulky: misanthropic, misanthropical: misogynous: shirty, snorty ill-tempered or annoyed): shrewish, nagging, vixenish: surly, ugly) Also See: unpleasant.

Dictated by, or indicating, ill nature; spiteful. "The ill-natured task refuse."

Intractable; not yielding to culture. (R.) "Ill-natured land."

Not to one's liking; unpleasant; disagreeable. Opposite of agreeable. (Narrower terms: annoying, galling, chafing, irritating, nettlesome, pesky, pestiferous, pestilent, plaguy, plaguey, teasing, vexatious, vexing; nerve-racking, nerve-wracking, stressful, trying)

Synonyms: disagreeable.

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Etymology of 'Ill-natured'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ill-natured" Quotes from Famous Books

... said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, 'she hasn't taken much to any companions here; she hasn't taken kindly to any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention sweethearts. In consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that Em'ly wanted to be a lady. Now my opinion is, that it came into circulation principally on account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if she was a lady she would like to do so-and-so for her uncle—don't you see?—and ...

— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... intellectuality about it too, for did it not foster a spirit of meditation, contemplation, and even of philosophical speculation—when he chanced to be awake? Moreover, it saved him from harder labour, and shut the mouths of those ill-natured people who objected to drones, and had a tendency to reproach them, for was he not assiduously procuring for men and women a portion of that nourishment without which labour would ...

— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... consider that all wise, all honest, all ingenuous persons have an aversion from ill-speaking, and cannot entertain it with any acceptance or complacence; that only ill-natured, unworthy, and naughty people are its willing auditors, or do abet it with applause. The good man, in Psalm xv., non accipit opprobrium, doth not take up, or accept, a reproach against his neighbour: "but a wicked doer," ...

— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... Burns dined at Gordon Castle, the seat of the lively Duchess of Gordon, whom he had met in Edinburgh. Here again he was received with marked respect, and treated with the same Highland hospitality that had so charmed him at Blair; and here also the pleasure of the whole party was spoilt by the ill-natured jealousy of Nicol. That fiery dominie, imagining that he was slighted by Burns, who seemed to prefer the fine society of the Duchess and her friends to his amiable companionship, ordered the horses to be put to the carriage, and determined to set off alone. As the spiteful fellow ...

— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... though it had a large sale, its reception in England was not quite what he had hoped for; and in America it was received by the press with something like hostility. Unfortunately some busybody in America made it his concern to forward to Irving all the ill-natured flings which could be gleaned from American notices of the new book. The incident—with all its unpleasantness—was trifling enough, but to Irving's raw sensitiveness it was torture. He was overwhelmed ...

— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

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