IRRITABILITY • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Irritability

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/ɪrɪtəbˈɪləti/ Listen

noun

Irritability n.

The state or quality of being irritable; quick excitability; petulance; fretfulness; as, irritability of temper.

(Physiol.) 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 possesses, 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.

(Med.) A condition of morbid excitability of an organ or part of the body; undue susceptibility to the influence of stimuli. See Irritation, n., 3.

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Etymology of 'Irritability'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Irritability" Quotes from Famous Books

... up of new centres of activity in the psychic nature of man is frequently attended by temporary loss of control over the normal brain functions. Loss of memory, hysteria, absentmindedness, unconscious utterance of one's thoughts, illusions and hallucinations, irritability, indifference to one's surroundings, and similar perversions, are among the products of the newly-evolved ...

— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial

... "with whom the maternal uncle of the M'Aulays had been placed in feud, was a small sept of banditti, called, from their houseless state, and their incessantly wandering among the mountains and glens, the Children of the Mist. They are a fierce and hardy people, with all the irritability, and wild and vengeful passions, proper to men who have never known the restraint of civilized society. A party of them lay in wait for the unfortunate Warden of the Forest, surprised him while hunting alone and unattended, and ...

— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... recalled me to a true sense of the situation. If, Monsieur, you happen to have gone through a similar day of violent effusion and general expansion, you will agree with me that during no other moment of your life were you more inclined to irritability. ...

— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... the mud and sleep in the rain and chew up carpet-tacks and grind Huns into leber-wurst. They were putting through the job—with a fierce and terrifying gaiety; they exulted in their toughness, they called themselves "grizzlies" and "mountain cats" and what not; they sang wild songs about their irritability, their motto was "Treat 'em rough!" It was a scary atmosphere for a dreamer and utopian; Jimmie Higgins shrank into himself, afraid even to reach about for some fellow-Socialist with whom he might exchange opinions about the events ...

— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... explosions more or less Vesuvian, in the inner man of Herr Diogenes; as indeed how could it fail? A nature, which, in his own figurative style, we might say, had now not a little carbonized tinder, of Irritability; with so much nitre of latent Passion, and sulphurous Humor enough; the whole lying in such hot neighborhood, close by "a reverberating furnace of Fantasy:" have we not here the components of driest Gunpowder, ...

— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

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