Crab"bed (kr?b"b?d), a. [See Crab,n.]
1.
Characterized by or manifesting, sourness, peevishness, or moroseness; harsh; cross; cynical; -- applied to feelings, disposition, or manners.
Crabbed age and youth can not live together.
Shak.
2.
Characterized by harshness or roughness; unpleasant; -- applied to things; as, a crabbed taste.
3.
Obscure; difficult; perplexing; trying; as, a crabbed author.
"
Crabbed eloquence."
Chaucer.
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose.
Milton.
4.
Cramped; irregular; as, crabbed handwriting.
-- Crab"bed*ly, adv. -- Crab"bed*ness, n.
© Webster 1913.