irritability
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Latin irritabilitās.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
irritability (countable and uncountable, plural irritabilities)
- The state or quality of being irritable; quick excitability
- irritability of temper
- (physiology) A natural susceptibility, characteristic of all living organisms, tissues, and cells, to the influence of certain stimuli, response being manifested in a variety of ways.
- 1800, Erasmus Darwin, Phytologia, Or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening:
- We find a renitency in ourselves to ascribe life and irritability to the cold and motionless fibres of plants.
- 1835, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (d. 1834), Specimens of the Table Talk
- There is growth only in plants; but there is irritability, or, a better word, instinctivity, in insects.
- (medicine) A condition of morbid excitability of an organ or part of the body; undue susceptibility to the influence of stimuli.
Synonyms[edit]
- (state of being irritable): petulance, fretfulness
Translations[edit]
state or quality of being irritable
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References[edit]
- “irritability”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “irritability”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.