irritate

Definition

To provoke impatience, anger, or displeasure in.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin irrītātus, perfect passive participle of irrītō (“excite, irritate, incite, stimulate”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).

Example Sentences

• "If thou irritatest my lord, there will come to war against thee all the Getulians, Numidians, and Garamantes, Afric contains."
• "Thou scandalizest me and irritatest my nature as much as it possibly can be irritated."
• "Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen."

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