different between unpleasant vs irascible

English

Etymology

From Middle English unplesaunt, equivalent to un- +? pleasant.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n?plez?nt/

Adjective

unpleasant (comparative unpleasanter or more unpleasant, superlative unpleasantest or most unpleasant)

1. Not pleasant.
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act III, Scene 2,^[1]

     O sweet Portia,

     Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words

     That ever blotted paper!

   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year, London: E. Nutt, p. 214,^[2]

     It was indeed one admirable piece of Conduct in the said Magistrates, that the Streets were kept constantly clear, and free from all manner of frightful Objects, dead Bodies, or any such things as were indecent or unpleasant, unless where any Body fell down suddenly or died in the Streets […]

   • 1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 35,^[3]

     The very circumstance, in its unpleasantest form, which they would each have been most anxious to avoid, had fallen on them.

   • 1865, Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 1,^[4]

     […] she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them […]

   • 1921, Walter de la Mare, Memoirs of a Midget, Chapter 37,^[5]

     And I dipped into novels so like the unpleasanter parts of my own life that they might just as well have been autobiographies.

Derived terms

• unpleasantness

Synonyms

• disagreeable

Translations

Anagrams

• pennatulas

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