crusty

/ˈkrʌsti/

/ˈkrʌsti/

Other forms: crustily; crustiest; crustier

The adjective crusty is good for describing something that is crisp on the outside, like a loaf of French bread.

You can describe something with a crunchy outer layer and a softer inside as crusty, but you can also use the word to mean "crabby" or "ill-tempered." Your mean old neighbor who yells at kids to get off his lawn is crusty, for example. While the literal meaning is older, this "cranky or surly" meaning has been around since the 1500s. The root of both is the Latin crusta, "rind, crust, shell or bark."

Definitions of crusty

1. adjective

   having a hardened crust as a covering
   synonyms: crusted, crustlike, encrusted

   covered

   overlaid or spread or topped with or enclosed within something; sometimes used as a combining form
2. adjective

   brusque and surly and forbidding
   “crusty remarks”

   “a crusty old man”

   synonyms: curmudgeonly, gruff, ill-humored, ill-humoured

   ill-natured

   having an irritable and unpleasant disposition