irritable vs irritate, What's the Difference?

Which to use

“irritable” is an adjective and “irritate” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#25,805
“irritable” frequency rank: #26,132
“irritate” frequency rank: 51937
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature	irritable	irritate
Definition	Capable of being irritated.	To provoke impatience, anger, or displeasure in.

Where the spellings diverge

Shared letters are muted; the letters that actually set irritable and irritate apart are highlighted. They share 7 letters in sequence, which is exactly why the eye skips the difference.

9 ch

irritable

8 ch

irritate

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: irritable is /ˈɪɹɪtəbl̩/ while irritate is /ˈɪɹ.ɪˌteɪt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (adjective vs verb), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 51937, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

irritable is recorded at frequency rank #25,805, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈɪɹɪtəbl̩/. irritate is at rank #26,132, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈɪɹ.ɪˌteɪt/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 51937, this pair ranks #161,262 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of irritable vs irritate

Shared letters: aeirt. Private to "irritable": bl. Private to "irritate": -.

"irritable" · 9 letters · shape VCCVCVCCV · "irritate" · 8 letters · shape VCCVCVCV

Known mistypes of this pair

irritable ← irirtable · iritable · irriatble · irritabble · irritabel · irritablle · irritalbe · irritbale
irritate ← irirtate · iritate · irriatte · irritaet · irritatte · irrittae · irrittate · irrtiate

Frequency comparison

irritable#25,805

irritate#26,132

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "irritable" and "irritate" be used interchangeably?

No - they are not even the same part of speech. "irritable" is an adjective and "irritate" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.

Which is more common, "irritable" or "irritate"?

"irritable" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #25,805 in our English list, against #26,132 for "irritate". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Remembering irritable vs irritate

The fastest way to pick the right one every time.

Check the role first: if you need an adjective, it's “irritable”; for a verb, it's “irritate”.
See each word in full, definition, IPA, etymology and its other confusables. Full “irritable” entry
Browse more pairs most likely to be confused. Most confusable