Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Prone to outbursts of temper; easily angered.
- adj. Characterized by or resulting from anger.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- 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.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Prone to anger; easily provoked or inflamed to anger; choleric; irritable.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. quickly aroused to anger
- adj. characterized by anger
Etymologies
- From French irascible, from Late Latin īrāscibilis. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, from Late Latin īrāscibilis, from Latin īrāscī, to be angry, from īra, anger; see eis- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“_ 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_.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Therefore hope resides in the higher appetite called the will, and not in the lower appetite, of which the irascible is a part.”
“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.”
“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
“Furthermore, Mayor McGinn isn't at all "irascible" (prone to anger), Josh "hothead" Feit.”
“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.
“Two KwaZulu-Natal lawyers told Business Day he was "irascible" and impatient on the bench, but he was "revered" for his legal acumen.”
“In contrast, he believes Mr McCain has been badly advised in his campaign strategy and come across as "irascible".”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘irascible’.
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1100
abound, technology, branch of knowled..., prognosticate, automaton, matron, an older married ..., realm, special field of ..., kingdom, annals, historical records and 981 more...
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My first list
exposition, anecdote, perspicacious, polemic, imbroglio, irascible, vicissitude, venality, payola, amatory, caliginous, avuncular and 5 more...
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501
Classic
mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly and 401 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
zealot, wistful, welter, wary, whimsical, warranted, vortex, vivisection, volatile, vitiate, viscous, visage and 787 more...
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250 More Spelling Words
More words for intermediate and advanced spellers.
erethism, risus, zendik, agiotage, sciolism, fusain, mbaqanga, empyrean, chary, sialogogue, zingiber, kachina and 238 more...
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501
Classic
abhor, mirth, obtuse, iota, vex, irk, teem, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane and 401 more...
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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501
Classic
irk, teem, blight, pith, moot, mete, ire, bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado and 401 more...
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501
Classic
bane, bilk, boor, elan, ado, toil, onus, aberration, abstruse, anomaly, assiduous, august and 401 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 483 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1843 more...
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magoosh1
aberration, aboveboard, abysmal, ace, affable, aghast, alacrity, ambiguous, ambivalent, ameliorate, amenable, amiable and 215 more...
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to memorize
words i need to memorize
aberrant, abscond, advocate, aggrandize, amalgamate, ambiguous, ambrosial, anomalous, antediluvian, antipathy, arbitrate, assuage and 163 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for irascible.
reesetee Hmm...are you feeling quickly aroused to anger, perhaps? ;-) Nov 8, 2007