Irritate

//ˈɪɹ.ɪˌteɪt// verb

verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To provoke impatience, anger, or displeasure in. transitive

    "If thou irritatest my lord, there will come to war against thee all the Getulians, Numidians, and Garamantes, Afric contains."

  2. 2
    To render null and void. obsolete, transitive

    "c. 1634-1661 John Bramhall, Protestants' Ordination Defended Are human laws presently superfluous, so often as they do not irritate or abrogate Divine laws ?"

  3. 3
    excite to an abnormal condition, or chafe or inflame wordnet
  4. 4
    To cause or induce displeasure or irritation. intransitive
  5. 5
    excite to some characteristic action or condition, such as motion, contraction, or nervous impulse, by the application of a stimulus wordnet
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    To induce pain in (all or part of a body or organism). transitive
  2. 7
    cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
annoyannoybotherchafedevilirk

Example

More examples

"The fact seemed to irritate her husband."

Etymology

Etymology 1

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

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Latin irritātus, perfect passive participle of irritō (“to invalidate, render void, annul”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from irritus (“invalid”), the equivalent of in- + ratus (“valid, established, fixed”).

Related phrases

null and void

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.