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# The Good Oil Word of the Day
- URL: https://goodoil.news/the-good-oil-word-of-the-day-364/
- Published: 2025-08-07T18:15:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-08-07T18:14:59.000Z
- Author: David Theobald
- Tags: General, Word of the Day

The word for today is…

cantankerous (adjective):

: difficult or irritating to deal with

Source : [Merriam -Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cantankerous?ref=goodoil.news)

Etymology : A person described as cantankerous may find it more difficult than most to turn that frown upside down, while a cantankerous horse/car/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 brings the anger and “bitter deep-seated ill will” (as rancor can be understood to mean), and cankerous brings the perhaps understandable foul mood: a cankerous person suffers from painful sores—that is, cankers.

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