Why “crabbedness” is a great word
CRABBEDNESS — [Noun] A state of being ill-tempered, perversely irritable, or difficult to understand. From Middle English crabbednes (first attested 1413), equivalent to crabbed (from Middle English crabbed, meaning 'perverse, irritable', from crab (the animal, suggesting a crooked or cross nature) + -ed) + -ness (a suffix forming nouns denoting a state or quality). Unlike "sullen" (which implies a gloomy, silent withdrawal) or "austerity" (which denotes a stern, principled severity), crabbedness is an active, peevish sharpness. It is the ink-stained editor's brusque rejection scrawled in the margin, the sour twist of a mouth correcting a minor error in perfect frost, and the text so densely, willfully obscure it seems to resent being read—a bristling defense against a world perceived as insufficiently precise.