This curmudgeonliness seemed par for the course, even somewhat exaggerated for effect.

It's hard to get a tally, in part because few curmudgeons will cop to their curmudgeonliness.

For all his outwardly curmudgeonliness, Mr. Ritter is a sentimental, generous man.

He grunted with fatherly curmudgeonliness.

Her bag lady strikes the perfect balance beween Lily Tomlin-like curmudgeonliness and frightening psychosis.

With considerable wit and minimal curmudgeonliness, he also laments the scarcity of such experiences in a culture that is co-opted and consumed by nonliterary temptations.

Before television and the flight of readership to the suburbs, city editors were mythic figures around town, unforgiving tribal leaders known for a thick brand of curmudgeonliness.

While Judy Brandt of Williamsport, Pa., loved the music, she was not charmed by the traditional curmudgeonliness of Catskills waiters.

Much of the humor springs from the curmudgeonliness developed by Claude Banks (Mr. Lawrence) and Ray Gibson (Mr. Murphy) over 60-odd years of needling each other.

Male curmudgeonliness would seem to offer scant comfort to Pat Blumenthal, a 36-year-old feminist, working mother and field organizer in the politics of abortion rights, where absorbing accusations of woman's self-villainy is a part of the job.

Barbara S. Held, a psychology professor at Bowdoin College and the author of "Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching," a book about the virtues of curmudgeonliness, said the Grump Out is part of what she calls "the tyranny of the positive attitude in America."