Green’s Dictionary of Slang

irritable, ill-tempered, quick to become angry.

1775		Sheridan Rivals (1776) V iii: But I hope, Mr. Falkland, as there are three of us come on purpose for the game – you won’t be so cantankerous as to spoil the party by sitting out.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 589: Cantankerous, in the sense of malicious and contentious, is used in America as in England [...] The word was at one time regarded as an American corruption of contentious, but more careful investigations have traced it back to an Anglo-Norman word contek, cited by Bailey as ‘conteke, contentious, Spenserian,’ by the side of ‘old English contekors, quarrelsome persons’.