irritate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin irrītātus, the past participle of irrītō (“to excite, provoke, annoy”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which de Vaan, as Etymonline reports, takes as probably a verb from Proto-Italic *rīto- (“stirred”), from the same root as run.^[2] Barnhart and Klein instead take it as an intensive of a lost *irriō, from in- (“in”) and a root meaning to set in motion, cognate with Ancient Greek ὀρῑ́νω (orī́nō, “to stir, rouse”);^[3][7] Merriam-Webster compares orior (“to rise”),^[8] and Skeat hirriō (“to snarl like a dog”), probably an imitative word.^[9] Barnhart also allows that the verb may be a back-formation from irritation, recorded from 1425.^[3] An earlier verb, irrite (mid-15th century), came from Old French irriter.^[2][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To stir up, rouse or incite a person to action: 1531, in Thomas Elyot's Boke Named the Governour.^[5][3][2]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, "to rouse to action", lasted until the 19th century and then merged into the modern one.^[5] The meaning "to annoy, make impatient or angry" is first recorded in Florio's Italian dictionary A Worlde of Wordes (1598),^[3][5][2] and the sense "to heighten or aggravate a feeling or action" ran from Bacon (1612) to the 1820s.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined the verb as "to provoke; to teaze; to exasperate".^[11] The medical sense, to make a part of the body sore or inflamed, appears in 1674,^[5] although the noun irritation already had a medical use in Middle English, in the translation of Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie (1425).^[3] The physiological sense, to stimulate an organ or tissue to respond, is from 1803.^[5] The noun irritation took the sense of annoyance only in 1703.^[3]

Timeline

• 1531 – to rouse, incite (obsolete by 1841).^[5][3]
• 1598 – to annoy, make impatient or angry, in Florio.^[5][3]
• 1612 – to heighten or aggravate an action or feeling (obsolete by 1824).^[5]
• 1674 – to make a part of the body sore or inflamed.^[5]
• 1803 – to stimulate an organ or tissue to respond.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make someone impatient or angry; to annoy: His constant humming irritated the whole office.^[12][13][14]
2. To make a part of the body sore or inflamed: The chlorine irritated her skin.^[12][13][14]
3. (physiology, biology) To stimulate a cell, tissue or organism to respond.^[12][13][14]
4. Intransitive: to cause annoyance.^[12]
5. (obsolete, 1612–1824) To heighten or aggravate an action or feeling.^[5][8]

Word family

• irritatingly
• irritator

Related words

• irritation
• irritative
• irritant
• irritable

Usage notes

Roman, civil and Scots law have a rare verb irritate, to make null and void, recorded from 1605.^[15][5][8] It is from the Late Latin past participle of irritō (“to make void”), from Latin irritus (“invalid”), and has a separate source from the common verb.^[5][15]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press