irascibility

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Tendency to become angry

Nouns

1. irascibility, temper; crossness; petulance, irritability, pugnacity, contentiousness, excitability; bad, hot, fiery, or quick temper, hot blood; ill humor, surliness, sullenness, churlishness, discourtesy. Informal, crankiness; boiling point. See malevolence, sensibility, dejection.

2. (outburst of anger) fury, huff, miff, anger, resentment.

3. hothead, blusterer; shrew, vixen, virago, termagant, scold, Xanthippe; spitfire. Informal, fire-eater, crank, grouch, crosspatch. Slang, ugly customer, sourpuss, sorehead.

Verbs — have a temper, have a devil in one; flare or fire up, be angry (see resentment); sulk, mope, fret, frown, glower; get up on the wrong side of the bed. Informal, be or get sore.

Adjectives — irascible, bad-, quick-, or ill-tempered, hotheaded, irritable, crabbed; excitable; thin-skinned, edgy, sensitive, Type A; hasty, overhasty, quick, warm, hot, testy, touchy, huffy; pettish, petulant; waspish, snappish, cranky, disgruntled, out of sorts, cross [as a bear], grumpy, peppery, fiery, passionate, choleric, shrewish; querulous, captious, moody, moodish; quarrelsome, contentious, disputatious; pugnacious, feisty, bellicose; cantankerous, churlish, discourteous (see discourtesy); fractious, peevish; in a bad temper; angry (see resentment). Informal, grouchy, ugly, sore, cross as two sticks, cross as a bear.

Adverbs — irascibly, irritably, etc.; against the grain.

Phrases — don't get mad, get even.

Quotations — Envy and wrath shorten the life (Bible), Let not the sun go down on your wrath (Bible), Anger is a brief madness (Horace), Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret (Ambrose Bierce), Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor (Elizabeth I), Anger is never without a reason, but seldom with a good one (Benjamin Franklin).

Antonyms, see courtesy, cheerfulness.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

Syn. wrath, irritability, quick temper, testiness; see anger , annoyance 1 .

III

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun A tendency to become angry or irritable: iras-cibleness, spleen, temper, temperament, tetchiness. Informal: dander. Slang: short fuse. Idiom: low boiling point. See FEELINGS.