Other forms: irritations
Irritation is small sharp annoyance. The fly that keeps coming back, the drip you can hear from the next room.
It is a mild word for a mild feeling, and that is exactly its use, since irritation is what you feel before anger arrives. It also has a precise physical sense meaning soreness, so a rash can be caused by irritation from a fabric. Both come from the same verb, irritate, which means to annoy and to inflame. The adjective divides the work, because an irritating person annoys you and an irritated skin is the sore one.
1nounirritationA feeling of mild annoyance.
“There was a note of irritation in her voice.”
2nounsorenessSoreness or inflammation of the skin or eyes.
“The soap caused some irritation.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Irritation began as excitement. Latin irrītō meant to stir up, to incite or to arouse, so the word named the stirring long before it named the annoyance that follows.
Latin
irrītātiō
Middle French
irritation
English, today
irritation
Built from
Middle French irritation, from Latin irrītātiō, from irrītō (“to excite”). by surface analysis, irritate + -ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA