How to Use crabby in a Sentence

crabby

adjective
  • She gets crabby if she doesn't get enough sleep.
  • Leah stayed crabby through dinner.
    — Kayla Grant, PEOPLE, 1 Oct. 2025
  • Watch the video to see the crabby toddler give her dad an adorable cold shoulder.
    — Sarah Scanlan, USA TODAY, 30 Aug. 2022
  • What’s more, each has evolved crabby body plans multiple times.
    — Jason P. Dinh, Discover Magazine, 12 Aug. 2022
  • Most questions were met with crabby three- and four-word non-answers.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 20 Aug. 2017
  • The edge of a coin provides an ample landscape for its crabby walk.
    — Manasee Wagh, Popular Mechanics, 26 May 2022
  • In one cartoon, a crabby guy is shown holding beaker of liquid.
    — Mary Ann Grossmann, Twin Cities, 7 Dec. 2019
  • A lot of people are crabby about the Olympics — even hostile to the Olympics.
    — Jay Nordlinger, National Review, 28 July 2021
  • And the crabby snacks (finger food served by Quick’s own mother) offered on game day.
    — Gary Thompson, Philly.com, 1 Feb. 2018
  • Lucy Van Pelt Lucy is the crabby kid who always has something up her sleeve.
    — Bestreviews, Mercury News, 6 Jan. 2026
  • There was plenty to like and really nothing to irritate a crabby old guy and his friends.
    — Mark Savage, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 20 June 2017
  • Keep your crabby comments and compulsive shopping on the down-low — at least for those 10 days.
    — Elizabeth Gulino, refinery29.com, 20 Oct. 2023
  • Gathering around a table to share a meal with friends can turn a crabby mood into a gift to appreciate.
    — Jennifer Angel, Harper's BAZAAR, 30 Dec. 2015
  • This man was feeling crabby after dropping the engagement ring in the ocean mid-proposal.
    — Alexandra Meeks, CNN, 30 Nov. 2022
  • The crabby old men at the controls were falling apart, physically and mentally.
    — Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone, 3 July 2022
  • The musical, while meant to appeal to crabby commuters of all stripes, is not meant to vilify the T or its workers.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 20 Oct. 2021
  • And at this late date, there is absolutely no point in trying to get the nation’s congenitally crabby reference librarians to crack a smile.
    — Joe Queenan, WSJ, 11 Aug. 2022
  • There’s little new about the setup of the crabby older person forced together with a resistant youngster only to surmount their mutual disdain and form a life-changing bond.
    — Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 2023
  • For the priests, this was a case of demonic possession due to witch-craft, and Mary’s crabby, aloof neighbor Elizabeth Jackson was the prime witch suspect.
    — Literary Hub, 28 Apr. 2026
  • Hailee Steinfeld plays the crabby, impatient, and judgmental high schooler Nadine.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, TIME, 30 July 2024
  • As the bread course is neatly at the mid-point of the menu, this is a great place to have the most intense flavor strike, which comes from the salty, savory, crabby, and nutty hoisin that perfectly cuts into the soft steamy core of the crab bun.
    — Chelsea Davis, Forbes, 21 Feb. 2024
  • The Cleveland Browns’ postseason drought grew from a crabby and cranky toddler into an exasperating adolescent.
    — Ben Shpigel, New York Times, 6 Dec. 2020
  • Responses on Twitter were similarly negative, with many users slamming Shaggy's lack of claws as the fan-favorite crabby crustacean.
    — Tribune News Service, cleveland, 6 Nov. 2019
  • In Semple’s depiction, Bernadette is more than just crabby and eloquently viper-tongued; she’s possessed by a sociopolitical bitterness, as well.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2019
  • Lorne Michaels’ show is actually getting general plaudits from typically crabby critics.
    — Rodney Ho, ajc, 15 Dec. 2021
  • It’s located in the crabby constellation Cancer, and Mars will appear as a brilliant red ruby surrounded by sparkly diamonds.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 31 May 2023
  • Another Playhouse vet, Natalie Cordone, expertly makes Lucy crabby and loud without being shrill.
    — Matthew J. Palm, orlandosentinel.com, 6 Dec. 2019
  • One crabby older professor in particular, Devoto (Silvio Orlando), mostly ignores her looks but is taken with her ideas.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 22 May 2024
  • Come the crash of 2008, David’s leisure-world empire collapses, and Abraham’s patriarchal mien and tolerance turn to crabby solitude with the prospect of unloading their dream for pennies on the dollar.
    — Gordon Cox, Variety, 2 Aug. 2024
  • That suspension of reality is what made The Bell such a genius brand activation and only a subpar hotel, at least for this crabby journalist with a tenuous relationship with the franchise (and fast food in general).
    — Mitchell Kuga, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Aug. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'crabby.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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