irritating
- adjective
- /ˈɪrɪˌteɪtɪŋ/
- Her irritating habit of tapping her pen made it hard for me to focus in the meeting.
- irritating behavior
- find irritating
- most irritating
including the most irritating noise that suddenly starts up outside.
- including the most irritating noise that suddenly starts up outside.
- That is obnoxious and irritating and costly.
- Now, if you don't have muscle dysmorphia, you might just find that irritating or disappointing.
- But then again, being overly helped is irritating.
- I do things that are mind bendingly irritating.
- There are a lot of little things, but I think most people would find these irritating, right.
- And that can be irritating over the micro slash immediate.
- We're really gnarly and gritty and, and not wide and really irritating.
Examples
-
It is irritating when someone interrupts you while you're speaking.
-
My brother can be an extremely irritating sort of person.
-
So it's super irritating and I just choose not to eat them.
-
And I found it irritating when she did it.
-
For some reason, that was more irritating than all the rest combined.
Fiction book (1991) -
And that sound is beginning to get irritating.
-
The military presence on campus was an irritating reminder of the old social order.
Academic text (1996) -
Having to make this particular choice was irritating and a distraction from the things I care about most.
Academic text (1999) -
As I have already said, it is also a complex, irritating, and exhilarating enterprise.
Academic text (2010) -
Okay, I admit it She was charming In a stubborn, irritating kind of way.
Synonyms
Making someone feel bothered or irritated
Causing small but persistent trouble or annoyance
Causing you to feel very angry or annoyed
Very annoying and hard to bear
Causing annoyance or trouble
Making someone feel annoyed or frustrated
Making you feel annoyed or bored
Making you feel very annoyed and frustrated
Making you feel annoyed because something seems unfair or hard to accept
Making a situation worse or more annoying
Causing people to feel annoyed or frustrated
Something that makes people feel annoyed or causes small repeated problems
A small pain or problem that keeps annoying you
A person who annoys another person by asking again and again
Causing a feeling that annoys you and does not go away
Making people feel annoyed or troubled
Causes annoyance or small trouble that makes you feel irritated
Annoying and causing repeated small problems or used to complain strongly
Antonyms
How Annoying
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Irritating comes from the old Latin verb irritare, which meant 'to excite' or 'provoke'. Think of it as something that 'stirs up' your feelings—like a noise or habit that keeps bothering you, so irritating means 'causing annoyance'.