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.
It has done it very well, but it has been curbed and crabbed in its activities and its programme is behind schedule.
In the light of the problems of 1959–60 the words about which we complain are somewhat crabbed, unimaginative and restrictive in their scope.
One must also take into account that, "crabbed age and youth cannot live together".
