IRRITABLE


Meaning of IRRITABLE in English

ˈirəd.əl, -rətə- adjective

( sometimes -er/-est )

Etymology: Latin irritabilis, from irritare to irritate + -abilis -able — more at irritate

: capable of being irritated: as

a. : likely to become impatient, angry, or disturbed : easily exasperated

an irritable disposition

such irritable neurotic people

broadly : easily excitable

b. : excessively or unduly sensitive to irritants or stimuli : exhibiting abnormal irritability

an irritable colon

c. of protoplasm or a living organism : responsive to stimuli

Synonyms:

fractious , peevish , snappish , waspish , petulant , pettish , huffy , huffish , fretful , querulous : irritable implies ready, impatient excitability whereby one is angered and exasperated easily

a hot day and the clerk in the store was irritable … had not slept much the night before and he had a headache — Lyle Saxon

fractious may suggest a wilful or truculent unruliness or perverse crossness

those who are spoilt and fractious, who must have everything their own way — F.A.Swinnerton

a wary, querulous, grumbling, vain, testy, self-righteous, honorable man, a defiant and fractious servant and a high-handed and mistrustful master — Arthur Schlesinger b.1917

peevish may suggest childish irritability about petty matters

peevish because he called her and she did not come, and he threw his bowl of tea on the ground like a willful child — Pearl Buck

peevish, and wrathful, often insolent, and quarrelsome — Charles Kingsley

snappish may apply to an irritability manifesting itself in sharp, tart, sarcastic objections and rejoinders

a little snappish at reflecting how many miles he had to post — Samuel Butler †1902

waspish may connote testy, resentful, stinging irascibility

a little waspish woman who would have been ahead of me snapped out at a man who seemed to be with her — C.S.Lewis

petulant may suggest sulky and capricious dissatisfaction and complaint as though resolved to be displeased

in his youth the spoiled child of Boston, in the middle life he was petulant and irritable, inclined to sulk when his will was crossed — V.L.Parrington

pettish may apply to childish, sulky ill humor of or as if of one slighted

she heard Amy's voice in pettish exclamation: “Oh, get out, you!” — Arnold Bennett

huffy or huffish may suggest a tending to take undue offense or to have one's arrogant pride hurt and to parade one's blustering irritation

rather huffy, and somewhat on the high-and-mighty order with him — Harriet B. Stowe

fretful suggests ill-humored continuing irritability and complaining or whining peevishness

his voice was peevish, almost whining, and there were certain overtones in it which recalled the fretful complaining voice — W.H.Wright

querulous stresses the idea of discontented whining complaining, often childishly futile, resentful, and arising from determined inclination to be displeased

the man himself grew old and querulous and hysterical with failure and repeated disappointment and chronic poverty — Aldous Huxley

Webster's New International English Dictionary.      Новый международный словарь английского языка Webster.