irritabilis

Forms

irrītābilis (neuter irrītābile); third-declension two-termination adjective^[1] Also spelled inrītābilis.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin irrītō + -bilis, from the verb meaning “to excite, provoke”.^[2][4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cicero uses it in a letter to Atticus (81–43 BC),^[3][5][6] remarking that the minds even of the best men are often easily provoked.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Classical Latin it means easily provoked or sensitive;^[2] Horace applies it to the race of poets (genus vatum), and Ammianus Marcellinus uses it later.^[3][5] In Lactantius it has an active sense, “exciting”, of beauty (formae).^[3][5]

Ecclesiastical Latin kept “irritable, easily roused”,^[7] and a German charter of 1243 uses it of a troublesome legal challenge.^[8] English irritable comes from it, partly through French irritable, from the 1660s.^[9]

Timeline

• 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it of the touchy minds of good men.^[3][6]
• 65–8 BC – Horace applies it to the race of poets.^[3][5][6]
• c. 250–317 AD – Lactantius uses it in the active sense “exciting”.^[3][6]
• 1243 – An Osnabrück charter uses it in the sense “troublesome”.^[8]
• 1660s – English borrows it as irritable.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Easily provoked, irritable, sensitive.^[2][3]
2. (Late Latin) Exciting, arousing.^[3][5]
3. (Medieval Latin) Troublesome, vexatious.^[8]

Word family

• irrītābilitās

Related words

• English irritable

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Bianchi, Rossella; Lelli, Olga (2014), VOLI: Vocabolario di latino, Florence: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e Conte, Gian Biagio; Pianezzola, Emilio; Ranucci, Giuliano (2010), il Latino: Vocabolario della lingua latina, 3rd ed., Florence: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
8. ^ a b c Mittellateinisches Wörterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert (1967–), Munich: C. H. Beck; Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com