irritability

From Latin irritabilitās, equivalent to irritable +‎ -ity.

• IPA^(key): /ˌɪɹɪtəˈbɪlɪti/

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irritability (countable and uncountable, plural irritabilities)

1. The state or quality of being irritable; quick excitability.

   irritability of temper

   • 2025 March 29, Kristen Rogers, “Over half of US states are trying to eliminate food dyes. Here’s what you can do now”, in CNN‎:

     Blue No. 1 and yellow No. 6 may also be toxic to some human cells. And as little as 1 milligram of yellow dye No. 5 may cause irritability, restlessness and sleep disturbances for sensitive children.

2. (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.

   • 1830 September 23, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Logic”, in H N C, editor, Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge. , volume I, London: John Murray, , published 1835, →OCLC, page 111:

     There is growth only in plants; but there is irritability, or, a better word, instinctivity, in insects.

3. (medicine) A condition of morbid excitability of an organ or part of the body; undue susceptibility to the influence of stimuli.

• (state of being irritable): petulance, fretfulness

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E Smith, editors (1911), “irritability”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “irritability”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.