irritable synonyms

irritable

modif.

sensitive, irascible, touchy, testy, ill-tempered, huffy, peevish, petulant, fractious, tense, high-strung, contentious, disputatious, resentful, fretting, carping, crabbed, hypercritical, out of humor, bearish, quick-tempered, short-tempered, easily offended, choleric, splenetic, glum, complaining, brooding, dissatisfied, plaintive, snarling, grumbling, surly, gloomy, ill-natured, morose, moody, fidgety, snappish, waspish, cantankerous, crotchety, curmudgeonly, captious, fretful, querulous, hypersensitive, ill-humored, annoyed, cross, cranky, churlish, grouchy, gruff, short, shrewish, sulky, sullen, crusty*, snappy*, having a short fuse*, thin-skinned*, pickle-pussed*, grumpy*, sour-bellied*; see also critical 2, excitable, quarrelsome 2.

Antonyms pleasant*, agreeable*, good-natured.

irritable implies quick excitability to annoyance or anger, usually resulting from emotional tension, restlessness, physical indisposition, etc.; irascible and choleric are applied to persons who are hot-tempered and can be roused to a fit of anger at the slightest irritation; splenetic suggests a peevish moroseness in one quick to vent his malice or spite; touchy applies to one who is acutely irritable or sensitive and is too easily offended; cranky and cross suggest moods in which one cannot be easily pleased or satisfied, cranky because of stubborn notions or whims, and cross because of ill humor

Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus Copyright © 1999 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.