"Pertest of songsters," the white-eyed vireo makes whatever neighborhood it enters lively at once. Taking up a residence in the tangled shrubbery or thickety undergrowth, it immediately begins to scold like a crotchety old wren. It becomes irritated over the merest trifles -- a passing bumblebee, a visit from another bird to its tangle, an unsuccessful peck at a gnat -- anything seems calculated to rouse its wrath and set every feather on its little body a-trembling, while it sharply snaps out what might perhaps be freely constructed into "cuss-words."英文原著 · 《Bird Neighbors》
We can't be forever looking out for his crotchety feelings."
"We won't be 'forever' doing that," prophesied the Mistress, unhappily. Left alone the old dog paced slowly back to his cave. The day was hot. His massive coat was a burden. Life was growing more of a problem than of old it had been. Also, from time to time, lately, his heart did queer things that annoyed Lad. At some sudden motion or undue exertion it had a new way of throbbing and of hammering against his ribs so violently as to make him pant. Lad did not understand this.英文原著 · 《Further Adventures of Lad》
I shall meet Lyell on Wednesday at Lord Stanhope's, and will ask him to forward my letter to you; though, as my arguments have not struck him, they cannot have force, and my head must be crotchety on the subject; but the crotchets keep firmly there. I have given your opinion on continuous land, I see, too strongly.英文原著 · 《More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I》
I do not want to be crotchety, but I should hate signing without some expression about the site being easily accessible to the populace of the whole of London.英文原著 · 《More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I》
His first impulse was to exclaim, "Why the devil do you borrow books of Flamel? I can buy you all you want--" but he felt himself irresistibly forced into an attitude of smiling compliance. "Flamel always has the newest books going, hasn't he? You must be careful, by the way, about returning what he lends you. He's rather crotchety about his library."英文原著 · 《The Touchstone》