Irritability
[,ɪrɪtə'bɪlɪtɪ] or [,ɪrətə'bɪləti]
Definition
(n.) The state or quality of being irritable; quick excitability; petulance; fretfulness; as, irritability of temper.
(n.) 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, -- as that quality in plants by which they exhibit motion under suitable stimulation; esp., the property which living muscle processes, of responding either to a direct stimulus of its substance, or to the stimulating influence of its nerve fibers, the response being indicated by a change of form, or contraction; contractility.
(n.) A condition of morbid excitability of an organ or part of the body; undue susceptibility to the influence of stimuli. See Irritation, n., 3.
Checked by Bianca
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. [1]. Irascibility, fretfulness, testiness, peevishness, petulance, excitability, snappishness.[2]. Susceptibility (to the influence of a stimulus).
Checked by Helena
Examples
- He rather liked him for it; and he was conscious of his own irritability of temper at the time, which probably made them both quits. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
- Perpetual fretting at length threw Madame Moritz into a decline, which at first increased her irritability, but she is now at peace for ever. Mary Shelley. Frankenstein_Or_The Modern Prometheus.
- Too little spirit is easily exhausted; too much quickly passes into nervous irritability. Plato. The Republic.
- He remembered Will's irritability when he had mentioned Mrs. Casaubon, and was the more circumspect. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- I, by this time, was heartily ashamed of having been thus surprised into temporary madness, owing to the extreme irritability of my nerves. Harriette Wilson. The Memoirs of Harriette Wilson.
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