ILL-TEMPERED

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ill-tempered mean? 

• ILL-TEMPERED (adjective)
  The adjective ILL-TEMPERED has 1 sense:

1. annoyed and irritable

  Familiarity information: ILL-TEMPERED used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ILL-TEMPERED (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Annoyed and irritable

Synonyms:

bad-tempered; crabbed; crabby; cross; fussy; grouchy; grumpy; ill-tempered

Similar:

ill-natured (having an irritable and unpleasant disposition)

 Context examples 

“You can't believe how ill-tempered and shocking she is, Julia.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“I should take him, even on my slight acquaintance, to be an ill-tempered man.”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

To be constantly living with an ill-tempered person, must be dreadful.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

She could not do otherwise than accept him, for he was rich, and she had nothing; but he turns out ill-tempered and exigeant, and wants a young woman, a beautiful young woman of five-and-twenty, to be as steady as himself.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

He was not an ill-tempered man, not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a reproach; but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects in it should not be increased.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

I do not care whether I meet him or not—except that of the two I had rather not see him—and indeed I would go any distance round to avoid him—but I do not envy his wife in the least; I neither admire her nor envy her, as I have done: she is very charming, I dare say, and all that, but I think her very ill-tempered and disagreeable—I shall never forget her look the other night!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)