cross as a bear



cross as a bear

Grumpy, ill-humored, annoyed, as in Stay away from Claire; she's cross as a bear this morning. Unlike the earlier cross as two stocks, this survives even though the adjective cross for "ill-tempered" is otherwise not used much in America. It is sometimes amplified as cross as a bear with a sore head. [Early 1700s]
See also: bear, cross

Common Names:

NameGenderPronouncedUsage
Priyanka-Indian, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali
CuthbertKUTH-burtEnglish (Rare)
ŠTefanijashte-FAHN-ee-yah (Croatian)Slovene, Croatian
MinnaMI-nah (German), MEEN-nah (Finnish)German (Archaic), Finnish, Swedish
Balkwill['bɔ:kwil]
Mads-Danish