irritability

From Latin irritabilitās.

• IPA^(key): /ˌɪɹɪtəˈbɪlɪti/

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irritability (countable and uncountable, plural irritabilities)

1. The state or quality of being irritable; quick excitability

   irritability of temper

2. (physiology) A natural susceptibility, characteristic of all living organisms, tissues, and cells, to the influence of certain stimuli, response being manifested in a variety of ways.
   • 1800, Erasmus Darwin, Phytologia, Or the Philosophy of Agriculture and Gardening:

     We find a renitency in ourselves to ascribe life and irritability to the cold and motionless fibres of plants.

   • 1835, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (d. 1834), Specimens of the Table Talk

     There is growth only in plants; but there is irritability, or, a better word, instinctivity, in insects.

3. (medicine) A condition of morbid excitability of an organ or part of the body; undue susceptibility to the influence of stimuli.

• (state of being irritable): petulance, fretfulness

• “irritability”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “irritability”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.