Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Prone to outbursts of temper; easily angered.
  • adjective Characterized by or resulting from anger.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Susceptible of anger; easily provoked or inflamed with resentment; choleric: as, an irascible man; an irascible temper.
  • Excited by or arising from anger; manifesting a state of anger or resentment.
  • Synonyms Irascible, Irritable, Passionate, hasty, touchy, testy, splenetic, snappish, peppery, fiery, choleric. Irascible indicates quicker and more intense bursts of anger than irritable, and less powerful, lasting, or manifest bursts than passionate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Prone to anger; easily provoked or inflamed to anger; choleric; irritable

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Easily provoked to outbursts of anger; irritable.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective quickly aroused to anger
  • adjective characterized by anger

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin īrāscibilis, from Latin īrāscī, to be angry, from īra, anger; see eis- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French irascible, from Late Latin īrāscibilis.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word irascible.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Hmm...are you feeling quickly aroused to anger, perhaps? ;-)

    November 8, 2007