Word of the Day

: August 28, 2019

irascible

adjective ir-RASS-uh-bul

What It Means

: marked by hot temper and easily provoked anger

irascible in Context

That tidy little house belongs to an irascible crank who never has a kind word for any of his neighbors.

"Working with Adam Baldwin, best known as the irascible mercenary Jayne in Firefly and Serenity and the gruff but lovable John Casey on Chuck, was another bonus." — Tim Clodfelter, The Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Journal, 8 June 2019

Did You Know?

If you try to take apart irascible in the same manner as irrational, irresistible, or irresponsible, you might find yourself wondering what ascible means—but that's not how irascible came to be. The key to the meaning of irascible isn't the negative prefix ir- (which is a variant of the prefix in- that is used before words beginning with "r"), but the Latin noun ira, meaning "anger." From ira, which is also the root of irate and ire, came the Latin verb irasci ("to become angry") and the related adjective irascibilis, the latter of which led to the French irascible. English speakers borrowed the word from French in the 16th century.