Word.ws English Dictionary

irritant

/ˈɪɹɪtənt/

irritant adjective: causing irritation or inflammation.

Adjective

irritant (not comparable)

  1. Causing irritation or inflammation.
    • Lin had harassed the missionary group multiple times. However, he was the one who scheduled a meeting with the two CGM members at a laundromat. Upon meeting, before they could even exchange words, Lin launched an attack. He pulled out a bottle of irritant liquid that he had prepared beforehand and...2026 March 11, Massimo Introvigne, “When Stigmatization Turns Violent: Two CGM Members Assaulted with a Hammer in Taiwan”, in Bitter Winter
  2. (Scotland) Rendering null and void; conditionally invalidating.
    • The states elected Harry, Duke of Anjou, for their king, with this clause irritant; that, if he did violate any part of his oath, the people should owe him no allegiance.1603, Hayward, An Answer to the first part of a certaine conference concerning succession

Noun

irritant (plural irritants)

  1. Any medication designed to cause irritation
  2. A source of irritation.

irritant meaning in Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada

irritant in Tamil

நமைச்சல் காரணி, எரிச்சலூட்டி, எரிச்சலேற்றி கடுப்பேற்றி, உறுத்தி, உறுத்தியும் உணர்வியும், தூண்டி

irritant in Malayalam

(source of) irritation, annoyance, thorn in someone's side
പ്രകോപനഹേതു, ശല്യകാരിയായ ആളോ വസ്തുവോ, ശർവ്വരീകൻ, ശർശരീകൻ, പീഡകൻ, ഉപദ്രവകാരി

irritant in Kannada

ಉದ್ರೇಕಕಾರಿ, ಉದ್ರೇಕಕರವಾದ

Examples of irritant in a sentence

  • She does not regard her ear-worms as anything other than an incidental irritant in her life.
  • It can be an irritant even for humans and is certainly toxic to tiny animals like stentor.
  • Amongst his haul, Davis found a number of toxic and irritant ingredients.

All 10 example sentences with irritant

Forms of irritant

pluralirritants

Origin of irritant

From French irritant, equivalent to irritate + -ant.

Words formed from irritant

Questions about irritant

What does irritant mean?
Irritant means causing irritation or inflammation.
What is irritant in Tamil?
Irritant in Tamil is நமைச்சல் காரணி, எரிச்சலூட்டி, எரிச்சலேற்றி கடுப்பேற்றி. See Irritant meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is irritant?
Irritant can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce irritant?
Irritant is pronounced /ˈɪɹɪtənt/.

Words near irritant in the dictionary

  1. irritainment
  2. irritance
  3. irritances
  4. irritancies
  5. irritancy
  6. irritant
  7. irritants
  8. irritatable
  9. irritate
  10. irritated
  11. irritatedly

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: irritant (page history and authors); irritant (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); irritant (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); irritant (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-irritant.wav.

Cite this entry: “irritant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/irritant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.