Green’s Dictionary of Slang

irascible, bad-tempered, sarcastic.

1846		Swell’s Night Guide 75: One of the combatants cuts the other [...] which soon cooks up a chaff and a snarly – that some of the party get shirty and narkish.
1895		Leeds Mercury Wkly Supp. 13 July 3/8: Doan’t let’s get narky ower it .
1930		N. Gale ‘Nan’ in Messrs Bat and Ball 41: She, Yorkshire born and Yorkshire bred, / Must feed on joy or suffer bane / When rival Roses take the field / In narky mood at Bramall Lane.
1932		M. Marshall Travels of Tramp-Royal 230: ‘And your old woman, Truthy?’ ‘Oh, I gave her to a Essex pea-picker for a pint and a packet of woodbines. She was geting narky, she was.’.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1944		A. Morrison letter 24 Feb. in Morrison Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002) 103: He said, all narky like, ‘That’s what you asked for isn’t it?’.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ in Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 25: ‘What do you mean, a growth, my lad?’ he’d say back, narky like.
1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 85: ‘Sometimes,’ he said, all narky, ‘I think you don’t like a laugh.’.
1970		C. Brown Down All the Days 175: I may be a narky bloody bastard and all, but they trust me.
1985		E. Leonard Glitz 306: The narky-looking cop from Miami was sitting in his office and he was trying very hard to be cordial.
1991		R. Doyle Van (1998) 575: Get out o’ me fuckin light, will yeh, said Jimmy Sr. Then he sort of saw himself, a narky little bollix, the type of little bollix he’d always hated.
1996		(ref. to 1963) D. Healy Bend for Home 133: You’re very narkey.
1998		P. Doyle (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 96: ‘Don’t get narkey. Ladies present’.
2000		Hartford Courant (CT) sect. D 5 Sept. 27/3: G’Day from Down Under [...] Take more than a passing insult [...] to get me narkie enough to chuck a spas.
2003		N. Griffiths Stump 74: — Darren [...] Yeh still narky? Still got thee arse?
2004		L. Redhead Peepshow [ebook] She can get a little narky after too much nose candy.
2017		A. Parks Bloody January 251: ‘Come on, Iris. Stop being a narky cow for once in your fucking life’.