Why this word is great
CROSSPATCH — [Noun] A grumpy, bad-tempered, or irascible person. From cross ("grumpy, ill-tempered") + patch ("fool, jester"), a term for the sour soul who plays the melancholic clown. Unlike "curmudgeon," which conjures a flinty, settled malevolence, or "grouch," a modern, generic chronic complainer, "crosspatch" carries the quaint, theatrical sting of a nursery-rhyme scold. It is the neighbor who scowls at children's laughter through a lace curtain, the shopkeeper who slams your change onto the counter with a martyred sigh, the small dog perpetually yapping at the heels of a sunny day—a portrait of pinched displeasure that reminds us discontent, too, requires its daily, foolish performance.