different between irascible vs captious

English

Etymology

From French irascible, from Late Latin ?r?scibilis.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /???æs.?.b?l/, /???æs.?.b?l/
• Rhymes: -?b?l

Adjective

irascible (comparative more irascible, superlative most irascible)

1. Easily provoked to outbursts of anger; irritable.
   • 1809, Washington Irving, Knickerbocker's History of New York, ch. 16:

     . . . the surly and irascible passions which, like belligerent powers, lie encamped around the heart.

   • 1863, Louisa May Alcott, Hospital Sketches, ch. 1:

     I am naturally irascible, and if I could have shaken this negative gentleman vigorously, the relief would have been immense.

   • 1921, William Butler Yeats, Four Years, ch. 10:

     . . . a never idle man of great physical strength and extremely irascible—did he not fling a badly baked plum pudding through the window upon Xmas Day?

   • 2004 Feb. 29, Daniel Kadlec, "Why He's Meanspan," Time:

     Alan Greenspan was on an irascible roll last week, first dissing everyone who holds a fixed-rate mortgage — suckers! — and later picking on folks who collect Social Security: Get back to work, Grandma.

Synonyms

• cantankerous, choleric, cranky, ill-tempered, hot-tempered

Related terms

Translations

References

• irascible at OneLook Dictionary Search

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin ?r?scibilis, from ?r?scor (“grow angry”), from ?ra (“anger”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /i.?a.sibl/

Adjective

irascible (plural irascibles)

1. irascible

Related terms

• ire

Further reading

• “irascible” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• ciblerais

Spanish

Adjective

irascible (plural irascibles)

1. irascible

English

Etymology

From Middle English capcious, from Middle French captieux, or its source, Latin capti?sus, from capti?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kæp??s/

Adjective

captious (comparative more captious, superlative most captious)

1. (obsolete) That captures; especially, (of an argument, words etc.) designed to capture or entrap in misleading arguments; sophistical.

   Synonyms: tricky, thorny, sophistical

2. Having a disposition to find fault unreasonably or to raise petty objections; cavilling, nitpicky.
   • 1968, Sidney Monas, translating Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment (1866):

     But Peter Petrovich did not accept this retort. On the contrary, he became all the more captious and irritable, as though he were just hitting his stride.

   • 2009, Anne Karpf, The Guardian, 24 Jan 2009:

     The "Our Bold" column, nitpicking at errors in other periodicals, can look merely captious, and its critics often seem to be wildly and collectively wrong-headed.

   Synonyms: carping, critical, faultfinding, hypercritical, nitpicky

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Anagrams

• autopsic