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shrewd [shrewd 词源字典]: shrewd: [14] Shrewd originally meant ‘wicked, dangerous’. Its modern sense ‘astute’ did not develop (via a less approbatory ‘cunning’) until the 16th century. It was derived from shrew ‘wicked man’ (a sense now obsolete). This is generally assumed to be the same noun as shrew the animal-name [OE], a word of uncertain origin. Shrews were formerly thought to have a poisonous bite, and were held in superstitious fear – hence the term’s metaphorical application. The move from ‘wicked man’ via ‘bad-tempered abusive complainer’ to ‘nagging woman’ began in the 14th century.
=> shrew[shrewd etymology, shrewd origin, 英语词源]
sting: sting: [OE] Sting comes from a prehistoric Germanic base *stengg-, which also produced Swedish stinga and Danish stinge. This denoted ‘pierce with something sharp’ (‘He with a spear stung the proud Viking’, Battle of Maldon 993), a meaning which was not ousted in English by the more specialized application to insects until the late 15th century. Stingy [17] may be based on stinge ‘act of stinging’, a dialectal noun derived from Old English stingan ‘sting’; an underlying sense ‘having a sting, sharp’ is revealed in the dialectal sense ‘bad-tempered’.
strop: strop: [OE] Strop has now narrowed down in meaning to the specialized ‘strip of leather for sharpening a razor’, but it used to be a much more general term for a leather band or loop. It goes back to a prehistoric West Germanic word that was probably an adoption of Latin stroppus ‘strap, band’. That in turn may well have come from Greek strophos ‘twisted band’, from strephein ‘turn’.

Old French had estrope from the same West Germanic source, and that probably reinforced the English word in the 14th century. Scottish pronunciation turned strop into strap [17], and that has now inherited most of the general functions of strop in English at large. As for stroppy ‘bad-tempered and uncooperative’, first recorded in 1951, no convincing link with strop ‘leather strip’ has ever been established (strop ‘fit of stroppiness’ is a back-formation from stroppy).

One suggestion is that it may be a radically stripped-down version of obstreperous.
bitchy (adj.): 1925, U.S. slang, "sexually provocative;" later (1930s) "spiteful, catty, bad-tempered" (usually of females); from bitch + -y (2). Earlier in reference to male dogs though to look less rough or coarse than usual.
Mr. Ramsay says we would now call the old dogs "bitchy" in face. That is because the Englishmen have gone in for the wrong sort of forefaces in their dogs, beginning with the days when Meersbrook Bristles and his type swept the judges off their feet and whiskers and an exaggerated face were called for in other varieties of terriers besides the wire haired fox. [James Watson, "The Dog Book," New York, 1906]
Related: Bitchily; bitchiness.
crab (n.2): "fruit of the wild apple tree," c. 1300, crabbe, perhaps from Scandinavian (compare Swedish krabbäpple), of obscure origin. The combination of "bad-tempered, combative" and "sour" in the two nouns crab naturally yielded a verb meaning of "to vex, irritate" (c. 1400), later "to complain irritably, find fault" (c. 1500). The noun meaning "sour person" is from 1570s.
Goldilocks (n.): name for a person with bright yellow hair, 1540s, from goldy (adj.) "of a golden color" (mid-15c., from gold (n.)) + plural of lock (n.2). The story of the Three Bears first was printed in Robert Southey's miscellany "The Doctor" (1837), but the central figure there was a bad-tempered old woman. Southey did not claim to have invented the story, and older versions have been traced, either involving an old woman or a "silver-haired" girl (though in at least one version it is a fox who enters the house). The identification of the girl as Goldilocks is attested from c. 1875. Goldylocks also is attested from 1570s as a name for the buttercup.
gremlin (n.): "small imaginary creature blamed for mechanical failures," oral use in R.A.F. aviators' slang from Malta, the Middle East and India is said to date to 1923. First printed use perhaps in poem in journal "Aeroplane" April 10, 1929; certainly in use by 1941, and popularized in World War II and picked up by Americans (for example "New York Times" Magazine April 11, 1943). Of unknown origin. OED says "probably formed by analogy with GOBLIN." Speculations in Barnhart are a possible dialectal survival of Old English gremman "to anger, vex" + the -lin of goblin; or Irish gruaimin "bad-tempered little fellow." Surfer slang for "young surfer, beach trouble-maker" is from 1961 (short form gremmie by 1962).