irritability
Americannoun
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irritabilities
plural
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the quality or state of being irritable.
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Physiology, Biology. the ability to be excited to a characteristic action or function by the application of some stimulus.
Protoplasm displays irritability by responding to heat.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of irritability
From the Latin word irrītābilitās, dating back to 1745–55. See irritable, -ity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He described attempting the keto diet as a “near-psychotic event” brought on by sugar withdrawal, joking that giving someone in his position that much irritability could have geopolitical consequences.
From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026
It also fueled his irritability and erratic behavior, she said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Clinicians call this the “prescribing cascade”: An antidepressant causes insomnia, so a sleep aid is added; a stimulant causes irritability, so a mood stabilizer follows.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 10, 2026
Dementia tends to be thought of mostly as a memory-loss disease, but there are many other aspects, including disorientation, difficulty balancing, poor coordination, trouble multitasking, confusion, wandering, apathy, irritability, impulsivity, poor judgment, and social inappropriateness.
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2026
He shrugged, shoulders thick with sudden irritability, as though he could not believe she did not recognize her good fortune.
From "Americanah" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
I will answer—to keep my mind free, and unbiased by all paltry and personal irritabilities of praise or censure; to let my genius take its natural direction.
From My Recollections of Lord Byron by Sir Hubert E. H. (Hubert Edward Henry) Jerningham
Whereas this difficulty ceases, if the embryon be supposed to consist of a living filament, which acquires or makes new parts with new irritabilities, as it advances in its growth.
From Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin
In this early formation of the embryon from the irritabilities, sensibilities, and associabilities, and consequent appetencies, the faculty of volition can scarcely be supposed to have had its birth.
From Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin
And when they did talk, little unsuspected irritabilities began to gleam out.
From Missy by Dana Gatlin
It acquires irritabilities, and sensibilities with new organizations, as in wounded snails, polypi, moths, gnats, tadpoles.
From Zoonomia, Vol. I Or, the Laws of Organic Life by Erasmus Darwin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
