different between irascible vs sinister

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

Alternative forms

• sinistre (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English sinistre (“unlucky”), from Old French sinistra (“left”), from Latin sinestra (“left hand”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s?n?st?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?s?n?st?/
• Accented on the middle syllable by the older poets, such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Dryden.

Adjective

sinister (comparative more sinister, superlative most sinister)

1. Inauspicious, ominous, unlucky, illegitimate (as in bar sinister).

   • All the several ills that visit earth, / Brought forth by night, with a sinister birth.
2. Evil or seemingly evil; indicating lurking danger or harm.

   sinister influences

   the sinister atmosphere of the crypt

3. Of the left side.
   • 1911, Saki, ‘The Unrest-Cure’, The Chronicles of Clovis:

     Before the train had stopped he had decorated his sinister shirt-cuff with the inscription, ‘J. P. Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near Slowborough.’

4. (heraldry) On the left side of a shield from the wearer's standpoint, and the right side to the viewer.
5. (obsolete) Wrong, as springing from indirection or obliquity; perverse; dishonest.
   • 1612, Francis Bacon, Of Judicature

     Nimble and sinister tricks and shifts.

   • 1667, Robert South, The Practice of Religion Enforced by Reason

     He scorns to undermine another's interest by any sinister or inferior arts.

Antonyms

• (of the right side): dexter
• (heraldry): dexter

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• insister, resistin, sinistre

Dutch

Pronunciation

Adjective

sinister (comparative sinisterder, superlative sinisterst)

1. sinister

Inflection

German

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /zi?n?st?/

Adjective

sinister (comparative sinisterer, superlative am sinistersten)

1. sinister

Declension

Latin

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *senisteros, of unknown origin, but possibly from a euphemism from the same Proto-Indo-European root as Sanskrit ??????? (san?y?n, “more useful, more advantageous”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /si?nis.ter/, [s???n?s?t??r]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /si?nis.ter/, [si?nist??r]

Adjective

sinister (feminine sinistra, neuter sinistrum); first/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er)

1. left

   Synonyms: laevus, scaevus

   Antonym: dexter

2. perverse, bad; or adverse, hostile
   • 1st BC, Virgilius

     mores sinistri

     arboribus Notus sinister

3. (religion) auspicious (for Romans) or inauspicious (for Greeks)
   • 1st BC, Virgilius

     sinistra cornix, good omen

   • 2nd century, Apuleius

     sinistro pede profectus, started with bad omen

Declension

First/second-declension adjective (nominative masculine singular in -er).

Descendants

References

• sinister in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• sinister in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Castiglioni-Mariotti, IL