Sometimes people don’t feel like being around other people. They get grumpy, have “down” days, or, at least, have extended moments of annoyance at all the little things that are clamoring for their attention, such as midterms, quizzes, papers and the like.

When in such a mood, we call these people “cantankerous,” a colorful colloquial adjective describing a touchy or thoroughly disagreeable disposition. A thanks is due to Amanda Wilber for suggesting the word as worthy of further etymological examination.

Since it is slang, the origin of “cantankerous” is a bit on the obscure side, coming to us, perhaps, from the Middle English word conteke. Conteke means “contention” or “dissension,” with a contekour being “one who raises strife,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Conteke comes, in turn, from the Anglo-Norman contec, argues the American Heritage Dictionary, which, in turn, might come from the Latin contāctus — past participle of contingere, meaning “to touch.”

The American Heritage Dictionary further postulates that the word has as its influential uncles, rancorous — bitter resentment, from the Latin root rancēre, meaning “to stink” — and cankerous — infected with canker, or malignant disease, thus sharing the same Latin root as cancer — with cantankerous the resulting modern version of the formation noted above.

At any rate, the first appearance in written English of the word, as noted by the Oxford English Dictionary, comes in at about 1772 in Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer, or the Mistakes of a Night, a Comedy, with the line, “There’s not a more bitter cantanckerous road in all Christendom.” And no, the spelling wasn’t quite standardized yet.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Goldsmith (1730-1774) was a rags-to-riches Anglo-Irish writer of considerable and broad, if occasionally eccentric, talent. Socially awkward, he nevertheless befriended many of London’s upper literary echelon. This included the author Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), who said this upon his friend’s death: “No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”

A good later example of cantankerous in action comes to us in 1865, in a Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries by David Livingstone — yes, the Christian medical missionary and Scottish explorer of “I presume” fame — with the line, “a crusty old bachelor or ... a cantankerous husband.”

Livingstone (1813-1873) was a gutsy guy. At various points in his adventurous life, he crisscrossed Africa, was mauled by a lion, fought the slave trade and was the first European to spot what he named Victoria Falls — what the locals called “Mosi-oa-Tunya,” or “The Smoke That Thunders.” According to the Britannica, his hard-won perspective on Africa has influenced European attitudes toward the continent — for the most part, in a good way — to this day.

I hope you avoid a spirit of cantankerousness this week, or, failing that, at least recognize when you’re suffering from it, taking heart in the not-so-cantankerous examples of Goldsmith and Livingstone. Please feel free to send me your word ideas to features@dailyuw.com, and, until next time, cheerio.

Reach columnist Will Mari at features@dailyuw.com.