Definitions

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

  • noun The act of irritating.
  • noun The condition of being irritated; vexation.
  • noun A source of irritation.
  • noun An inflammatory reaction of a bodily part.
  • noun Physiology The elicitation of a response to a stimulus in a plant or animal organ or tissue, especially in a nerve or muscle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of irritating, or the state of being irritated; impatient or angry excitement; provocation; exasperation.
  • noun Stimulation; incitement; a stirring up to activity.
  • noun In physiology, the act of evoking some action, or change of state, in a muscle, nerve, or other living tissue, by some chemical, physical, or pathological agent; the state or action thus evoked.

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

  • noun The act of irritating, or exciting, or the state of being irritated; excitement; stimulation, usually of an undue and uncomfortable kind; especially, excitement of anger or passion; provocation; annoyance; anger.
  • noun (Physiol.) The act of exciting, or the condition of being excited to action, by stimulation; -- as, the condition of an organ of sense, when its nerve is affected by some external body; esp., the act of exciting muscle fibers to contraction, by artificial stimulation; ; also, the condition of a muscle and nerve, under such stimulation.
  • noun (Med.) A condition of morbid excitability or oversensitiveness of an organ or part of the body; a state in which the application of ordinary stimuli produces pain or excessive or vitiated action.

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

  • noun The act of irritating, or exciting, or the state of being irritated; excitement; stimulation, usually of an undue and uncomfortable kind; especially, excitement of anger or passion; provocation; annoyance; anger.
  • noun The act of exciting, or the condition of being excited to action, by stimulation; -- as, the condition of an organ of sense, when its nerve is affected by some external body; esp., the act of exciting muscle fibers to contraction, by artificial stimulation; as, the irritation of a motor nerve by electricity; also, the condition of a muscle and nerve, under such stimulation.
  • noun A condition of morbid excitability or oversensitiveness of an organ or part of the body; a state in which the application of ordinary stimuli produces pain or excessive or vitiated action.

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

  • noun a sudden outburst of anger
  • noun the neural or electrical arousal of an organ or muscle or gland
  • noun the psychological state of being irritated or annoyed
  • noun the act of troubling or annoying someone
  • noun an uncomfortable feeling of mental painfulness or distress
  • noun unfriendly behavior that causes anger or resentment
  • noun (pathology) abnormal sensitivity to stimulation

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin irritatio, from irritare ("to excite")

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