Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • A Scotch form of crabbed.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Scotland Grouchy, cantankerous.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Scots crabbit, from crab.

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Examples

  • "There is no need to fly at me, or take that crabbit tone," says she, rising swiftly.

    Watershed 2010

  • EDITOR: Perhaps they have just had enough of a peculiar and frankly rather worrying, ranting, raving, Nokia throwing, printer hurling, crabbit eejit?

    Archive 2009-06-01 Thatsnews 2009

  • I had made Bill go ahead after Torduff because I felt puggled and crabbit and I was trying to avoid taking it out on him though it was his fault but he waited for me at Glencorse so that he could keep me company going UP past Loganlea Reservoir.

    An uphill struggle 2009

  • I had made Bill go ahead after Torduff because I felt puggled and crabbit and I was trying to avoid taking it out on him though it was his fault but he waited for me at Glencorse so that he could keep me company going UP past Loganlea Reservoir.

    Black socks, they never get dirty 2009

  • EDITOR: Perhaps they have just had enough of a peculiar and frankly rather worrying, ranting, raving, Nokia throwing, printer hurling, crabbit eejit?

    Saturday Morning update. Brown clings on. And on and on... Thatsnews 2009

  • "There is no need to fly at me, or take that crabbit tone," says she, rising swiftly.

    Flashman And The Tiger Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1999

  • The old are crabbit, and they do be thinking more of draining a field, or of the price of flax, nor of the pain and delights of love.

    The Wind Bloweth Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne 1908

  • Or lee-lang nights, wi 'crabbit leuks, [live-long, crabbed looks]

    Robert Burns How To Know Him William Allan Neilson 1907

  • He that's crabbit without cause should mease without amends.

    The Proverbs of Scotland Alexander Hislop 1836

  • "Thirty or 40 years ago I'd have been crabbit and said 'away wi' ye, and leave me in peace. '"

    unknown title 2009

Comments

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  • This word famously appears in an anonymous poem published in 1973. Most of the urban legend associated with this poem attributes it to a senile elderly woman in a Dundee nursing home, where a nurse found it while packing her belongings following her death.

    "The body it crumbles, grace and vigour depart, There now is a stone where once I had a heart: But inside this old carcase a young girl still swells, I remember the joys, I remember the pain, And I'm loving and living life over again, I think of the years all too few--gone too fast, And accept the stark fact that nothing can last, So open your eyes nurses, open and see, Not a crabbit old woman Look slower--see ME."

    November 15, 2007

  • May 3, 2011