Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bad-tempered, irritable.

1951		H. Hastings Seagulls over Sorrento II i in Plays of Year 1950 IV 76: There ain’t nothing clever about answering him back and being stroppy .
1963		C. Wood ‘Prisoner and Escort’ in Cockade (1965) I iii: Big stroppy soldier aren’t you – where’d you learn to be a big stroppy squaddie like daddy?
1978		A. Brink Rumours of Rain 88: Mum, you needn’t worry any more. Bernard is all right for he’s getting stroppy again.
1982		J. Sullivan ‘It Never Rains’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Now don’t you start getting stroppy with me you ungrateful old git!
1989		R.G. Barrett Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 11: He might get a bit stroppy when he was tired [...] But the shits. Hardly ever.
1993		B. Moore Lex. of Cadet Lang. 373: usage: ‘Now piss off out of my sight, you fuckin’ stroppy little cunt!’.
2002		D. Shaw ‘Dead Beard’ at www.asstr.org 🌐 Personally, I’m as happy as a mouse nibbling away at a wedge of john cleese, but I’m not going to argue, not with Monica getting stroppy.
2010		K. Richards Life 494: When Bill Wyman left [...] I got extremely stroopy. I really did have a go at him.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 136: This Glen cunt looks at ays aw stroppy as ah sit doon.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 192: ‘Be careful of the goat—it gets stroppy with strangers’.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 354: ‘What good is there in [...] acting like a stroppy brick wall?’ I pow-wowed.