0 something that causes trouble or makes you annoyed: --
The report is bound to add a new irritant to international relations.
1 a substance that makes part of your body sore or painful: --
2 a cause of an uncomfortable physical reaction: --
Accordingly, an experiment was made employing the odour of fowl faeces which could not possess any general irritant properties.
A long-term irritant to the police has been the ongoing allegation that some officers have been closely connected with freemasonry.
As sludges dry in the field, lime and other irritant chemicals become concentrated and, therefore, may be more irritating upon dermal contact and inhalation.
One of these involves using the hind leg to scratch an area of skin to which an irritant has been applied.
Apprehension of the costs of mid-life, however, increases the mask as an irritant to the ego.
Nevertheless, the very concept of truth seems to be an irritant for some.
Almost inevitably, however, day-to-day irritants and culturally blinkered judgements by both sides aggravated the tensions between the two countries even before policy decisions became the source of more substantive disputes.
The altered patterns of eczema in elderly people are not well documented but limited work has suggested that reactions to allergens and irritants and, indeed, the inflammatory process are altered.
