Blunt, crabbed writing suggests obstinacy and a selfish love of power, without thought for the feelings of others.
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, Still there's the comment.
Pray sit down, Mr. Newton—taking a chair as she spoke, while she read the small, crabbed, tremulous characters written on the page presented to her.
The ink is faded and brown, and the writing is often crabbed and difficult to read.
Then they were in the very middle of a crabbed pamphlet, in which Ivan's superior knowledge of German had been invaluable.
Examplesofcrabbed
crabbed
It has done it very well, but it has been curbed andcrabbedin its activities and its programme is behind schedule.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
In the light of the problems of 1959–60 the words about which we complain are somewhatcrabbed, unimaginative and restrictive in their scope.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
One must also take into account that, "crabbedage and youth cannot live together".
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
That is a cramped,crabbedview of who should represent the public interest.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
I am sure that there were some ideas of his own struggling to emerge from that rathercrabbedprose.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
How the vision of youth can fall prey tocrabbedmiddle age!
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
It is a depressing,crabbedand mean picture.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
We do not wantcrabbedspecialists.
From the
Hansard archive
Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under theOpen Parliament Licence v3.0
Stylistically, the discourse veers abruptly from passages of sublime purple prose tocrabbednote-book jottings.
From
Wikipedia
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.
Sometimes called amateurish, it is densely drawn and washed, often with a large amount of text in a somewhatcrabbedhandwriting.
From
Wikipedia
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.
The current neglect may have as much to do with the notorious criticscrabbed, sometimes contradictory and dogmatic style.
From
Wikipedia
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.
I think it does apply to the debate about religion, in that it's acrabbednovelist who pulls the shutters down and says, there's no other thing.
From
Wikipedia
This example is from Wikipedia and may be reused under a CC BY-SA license.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.