Irascible

Posted: July 29th, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: People | Tags: | 3 Comments »

Photo of Andrew Jackson at 78, months before his death

Whether Andrew Jackson was a good or bad president, he was certainly an irascible being. Mere insults frequently provoked him to engage in duels, which in those days consisted of standing point-blank in front of an opponent and firing a musket. He was shot so many times that historian Chris Wallace exaggerated, “he was known to rattle like a bag of marbles”. The only man he actually killed in a duel, Charles Dickinson, was challenged after he insulted his wife. Jackson let Dickinson shoot first, which lodged a bullet deeply in his chest that stayed there for life.

Irascible (pronounced “ih-RAS-əh-bəl”)

1. *Prone to outbursts of temper; easily angered.
2. Characterized by or resulting from anger.

Etymology

From Latin irasci, “grow angry”, from ira, “anger”. Ira is also the root of “irate”.

Synonyms

irritable, hotheaded, choleric

Source

Wikipedia: Andrew Jackson

3 Comments on “Irascible”

  1. 1 Pat said at 1:51 pm on February 17th, 2010:

    Great idea, Brad! (This site, I mean.) Kudos to you! I love vocabulary, plus I teach EFL/ESL and sometimes just plain English, so this is very helpful. I think it’s excellent that you put the little fun fact first, and then the definition.

    If you could also include for each entry any Latin or Greek roots and prefixes/suffixes the word has, that would be awesome. Not quite like most dictionaries do, but a little more straightforwardly, if you know what I mean. What do you think?

    By the way, I found your site via your guest post at Daily Writing Tips about using Scamper to generate article ideas. I’d never heard of Scamper, and I found it fascinating. I’m going to incorporate it into my writing! Thanks!

  2. 2 Pat said at 1:52 pm on February 17th, 2010:

    P.S. I bookmarked your site.

  3. 3 Brad said at 5:59 pm on February 17th, 2010:

    Thanks Pat, I really appreciate your comments. I have thought about including the root word, or etymology, but just haven’t gotten around to incorporating and streamlining that process. I agree that it would be helpful though, since learning roots lets you see more connections between words.

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