different between caustic vs crabbed

English

Etymology

From the Latin causticus (“burning”), from the Ancient Greek ????????? (kaustikós, “burning”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: kôs't?k, k?s't?k, IPA^(key): /?k??st?k/, /?k?st?k/
• Rhymes: -??st?k

Adjective

caustic (comparative more caustic, superlative most caustic)

1. Capable of burning, corroding or destroying organic tissue.
2. (of language, etc.) Sharp, bitter, cutting, biting, and sarcastic in a scathing way.
   • 1853, Charlotte Brontë, Villette

     Madame Beck esteemed me learned and blue; Miss Fanshawe, caustic, ironic, and cynical

   • c. 1930, W.H.Auden, "The Quest"

     though he came too late / To join the martyrs, there was still a place / Among the tempters for a caustic tongue / / To test the resolution of the young / With tales of the small failings of the great

Synonyms

• (capable of destroying tissue): acidic, biting, burning, corrosive, searing
• (severe, sharp): bitchy, biting, catty, mordacious, nasty, sarcastic, scathing, sharp, spiteful, vitriolic

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

caustic (plural caustics)

1. Any substance or means which, applied to animal or other organic tissue, burns, corrodes, or destroys it by chemical action; an escharotic.
2. (optics, computer graphics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays of light for a given surface or object.
3. (mathematics) The envelope of reflected or refracted rays for a given curve.
4. (informal, chemistry) Caustic soda.

Derived terms

• lunar caustic

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English crabbed; equivalent to crab +? -ed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?æbd/
• Rhymes: -æbd

Adjective

crabbed (comparative more crabbed, superlative most crabbed)

1. Bad-tempered or cantankerous.
   • c. 1610-11, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act III scene i^[1]:

     […] O, she is / Ten times more gentle than her father's crabb'd, / And he's composed of harshness.

2. Cramped, bent.
   • c. 1800 Robert Southey, Winter:

     A wrinkled crabbed man they picture thee,

     Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey

     As the long moss upon the apple-tree; […]

3. (of handwriting) Crowded together and difficult to read.
4. (aviation, of an aircraft) Pointed at an angle to the runway during approach and landing to compensate for a crosswind.

Derived terms

• crabbedly
• crabbedness

Translations

Verb

crabbed

1. simple past tense and past participle of crab

Middle English

Alternative forms

• crabbid, crabbyd, crabbede

Etymology

From crabbe +? -ed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?krabid/, /?krab?d/

Adjective

crabbed

1. immoral, backwards, savage, rapacious
2. crabbed, ill-tempered, vengeful
3. (rare) Moving in reverse.

Derived terms

• crabbednes
• crabbidly

Descendants

• English: crabbed
• Scots: crabbit

References

• “crabbed, ppl.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-07-07.