irritate
verb
Simple meaning
To provoke impatience, anger, or displeasure in.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihrihtaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɪɹɪteɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitive
To cause or induce displeasure or irritation.
Cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations
transitive
To provoke impatience, anger, or displeasure in.
transitive
To induce pain in (all or part of a body or organism).
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To cause or induce displeasure or irritation.
Used this way, irritate is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use irritate
- “Irritate the glands of a leaf.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The psychological state of being irritated or annoyed.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.