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
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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_ Not Neoptolemus so mirable] [W: Neoptolemus's sire irascible] After all this contention it is difficult to imagine that the critic believes _mirable_ to have been changed to _irascible_.
Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746
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As God is the centre of our concupiscible affections, so sin is the object of those we call irascible; and the affections of love and hatred being the ground of all the rest, I must have a great care that I do not mistake or miscarry in them: for if these be placed upon wrong objects, it is impossible any of the rest should be placed upon right ones.
Private Thoughts Upon Religion and a Christian Life; to which is Added the Necessity and Advantage of Frequent Communion. Volume I. 1637-1708 1834
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Black George was, in the main, a peaceable kind of fellow, and nothing choleric nor rash; yet did he bear about him something of what the antients called the irascible, and which his wife, if she had been endowed with much wisdom, would have feared.
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Recalling his irascible nature, I had to smile, and his presence was so real that I began speaking to his statue: 'How strange it is, Father, that you who ignored English in college and read none of the great novels, who concentrated solely on your engineering work, should have written a book of such merit that they put up a statue of you.
Mexico Michener, James 1992
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Therefore hope resides in the higher appetite called the will, and not in the lower appetite, of which the irascible is a part.
Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Aquinas Thomas
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Black George was, in the main, a peaceable kind of fellow, and nothing choleric nor rash; yet did he bear about him something of what the antients called the irascible, and which his wife, if she had been endowed with much wisdom, would have feared.
IX. Containing Matter of No Very Peaceable Colour. Book IV 1917
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In the onslaught is displayed the animal excitement, the battle rage, which St. Thomas calls the irascible passion: and of this St. Thomas says, what Aristotle says of thymos, that it is an agency to be used by the rational will within due limits.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 6: Fathers of the Church-Gregory XI 1840-1916 1913
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Black George was, in the main, a peaceable kind of fellow, and nothing choleric nor rash; yet did he bear about him something of what the antients called the irascible, and which his wife, if she had been endowed with much wisdom, would have feared.
History of Tom Jones, a Foundling Henry Fielding 1730
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Furthermore, Mayor McGinn isn't at all "irascible" (prone to anger), Josh "hothead" Feit.
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Why, then, would Twain appropriate David's name, in this "mighty strike" of a story, for an "irascible," "generally detested" murder victim?
The Atlantic | July/August 2001 | Mark Twain's Reconstruction | Blount Jr. 2001
reesetee commented on the word irascible
Hmm...are you feeling quickly aroused to anger, perhaps? ;-)
November 8, 2007