Is “irritance” not a word?

Question

I thought the word irritance was a word — but it isn’t one according to Google and my dictionary.

It sounds correct; what is the word I should use?

By irritance I mean something that’s being irritating, like a person kicking the back of your plane seat is an irritance.

After researching more, I’ve found the word I was looking for was nuisance.

Unless you say how you might use it, we cannot say what word you “should” use instead. — tchrist, Jul 15 '14 at 19:41
Irritation? Or irritants? Or bus stop? Or sherbet lemon? Or perhaps something entirely different. Very hard to tell you what word you should use if you don't tell us what it's supposed to mean. — Janus Bahs Jacquet, Jul 15 '14 at 19:42
My gut feeling is that you're mixing up irritation and annoyance. — Rupe, Jul 15 '14 at 19:45
@Rupe No... I am pretty sure there is a word that ends in 'ance' with a meaning similar to what I think is irritance! — downloader, Jul 15 '14 at 19:47
@Rupe Although that is a word that means what I want, no, it isn't :( — downloader, Jul 15 '14 at 19:49
Same question here: http://www.ukhippy.com/stuff/showthread.php/36710-irritance-!-! — , Jul 15 '14 at 20:00
@Josh61 That's a big coincidence! I used almost the exact same example! — downloader, Jul 15 '14 at 20:03
Wow I've used irritance before and never knew it's "not a word", whatever that means. — Neil Kirk, Jul 16 '14 at 06:59
@NeilKirk Words are things that people say and write — and preferably which other people understand. You can never determine that something is not a word merely by consulting a dictionary. If you don’t find it, you still don’t know whether it is a word. See here for a bit of expansion over what I’ve said below. — tchrist, Jul 16 '14 at 14:47

score 10 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

10

Although irritancy certainly exists as a noun, something that is irritating is normally referred to as an irritant or an irritation — or less commonly and usually with a human agent only, an irritator.

(lifted out of ephemeral comments)

I haven’t found any dictionaries that yet contain irritance, although there do exist published books that happen to use it. This usually means that a word is too new or too rare to bother mentioning, since even catachrestic uses are documented by full dictionaries.

So although anyone would instantly understand what you meant by the word irritance, your computerized spellchecker might not like it and your readers might consider it a non-standard use.

It is important to remember that no dictionary purports to list all words, not even the OED. So just because a dictionary doesn’t list a word does not mean that that word is “not a word”. Absence of evidence never constitutes evidence of absence. There are many reasons why dictionaries leave words out.

You should therefore never conclude that the omission of a dictionary entry for a word somehow “means” that that word is not an “actual” word. As the link to published works shows, there actually are a few people who do — albeit on rather rare occasion — write irritance in published books. A few examples of actual printed use for irritance are:

But it is the interaction, perhaps even mutual irritance, set up between these two worldviews and their increasing lack of it, that motivates many of the striking cultural innovations of the twelfth century.
       ―The Medieval Greek Romance, by Roderick Beaton, 2012

... from a German perspective about those people who in fact were deported. Survivors of the Nazi regime are thereby labeled as a national irritance and Jews of younger generations become part of the reminder to Germans of a history that they might rather forget.
       ―“Journalismus als Beruf: Truth and the anti-Semitic journalist stereotype in the writings of Maxim Biller and Rafael Seligmann”, dissertation by Robert Anthony Feldman, 2008

Another feature of lung irritance is the longer term effect, which occurred following exposures to the atmosphere produced by the pyrolysis of flexible polyurethane foam at 600° C, and also by the non-flaming oxidative decomposition of ...
       ―Advances in Combustion Toxicology by Gordon E. Hartzell , 1988

CTC International undertakes human studies to assess cutaneous irritance, sensitisation potential and the efficacy an acceptability of a wide range of products.
       ―New Scientist, advertisement, 1984

My personal recommendation would be not to use irritance to mean an irritant, but there is no law forbidding you from doing so.

edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

Community

1

answered Jul 15 '14 at 19:44

tchrist

134,759

So irritance is not a word, but irritancy is? English is strange... :) – downloader Jul 15 '14 at 19:45
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Ah but to balance things up we have annoyance with no annoyancy. – Rupe Jul 15 '14 at 19:47
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@downloader I didn’t say irritance was not a word, merely that we normally use those other words. See here and here. – tchrist Jul 15 '14 at 19:48
@tchrist But surely, irritance would be in the dictionary?? – downloader Jul 15 '14 at 19:49
@downloader Well, I haven’t found any dictionaries that yet contain irritance, only published books that happen to use it. This usually means that it is too rare to bother mentioning, since even catachrestic uses are documented by full dictionaries. – tchrist Jul 15 '14 at 19:52
@tchrist So, in general, it is possible for a word to exist without being in the dictionary? It's just about awareness of a word? Like 'Google' was a few years ago? – downloader Jul 15 '14 at 19:53
@downloader If people use a word, then it is a word. I listen to potatonic rappazodical hop-metal. There, those are words now; I've just made them. Not that they refer to anything in particular, nor that anyone will use them after this point in time--but they are words nonetheless. – Anonym Jul 15 '14 at 19:58
@downloader No dictionary purports to list all words, not even the OED. So just because a dictionary doesn’t list a word does not mean that that word is “not a word”. Absence of evidence never constitutes evidence of absence. There are many reasons why dictionaries leave words out. You should never conclude that the omission of a dictionary entry for a word somehow “means” that that word is not an “actual” word. As the link shows, people do on rare occasion write irritance in published books, and you would certainly be understood. It’s simply rare and perhaps non-Standard. – tchrist Jul 15 '14 at 19:59
Anyway, after Googling (a word! ;) a bit more, I've found the word I was looking for was ***nuisance*** – downloader Jul 15 '14 at 20:02
I'll mark your answer as accepted because your comments helped me a lot! I don't have enough rep to +1 :( – downloader Jul 15 '14 at 20:05
1

@Anonym- I really like potatonic - A near vegetative state induced by extended periods of television viewing. – Jim Jul 15 '14 at 20:16
@downloader Thanks, I’ve promoted the comments into the main answer, and include a few citations. I still wouldn’t use it myself. – tchrist Jul 15 '14 at 20:26
@Jim Feel free to prove me wrong and make potatonic's existence less ephemeral. By the sounds of it, it actually could have a use. – Anonym Jul 15 '14 at 20:34
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@tchrist Now I really wish I could +1 you :) this is a very good, detailed answer! No wonder you have 51.7k rep! – downloader Jul 15 '14 at 20:37
@medica Thanks :). And with the upvotes I received on my question, I now have > 15 rep, so I'll +1 as well :) – downloader Jul 16 '14 at 14:15
@tchrist I have enough rep to +1 now :) – downloader Jul 16 '14 at 14:15

score 5 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 15 '14 at 19:48

I think you want irritant from the free dictionary:

causing irritation, especially physical irritation.

Even if it is ongoing, it is an irritant or irritation:

How small irritants become big issues—and what to do about them.

The under-representation of the backcountry areas in colonial legislatures was an ongoing source of irritation in the colonial South.

Perhaps your supposition that irritance is a word stems from the way irritants is pronounced.

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 15 '20 at 07:40

It sounds correct, what is the word I should use?

That depends upon what you want to say:

An irritant is something which irritates.

Irritation is the act or state of being irritated.

Irritance probably sounds correct to you because, having been derived from irritant, it follows a regular pattern: defiant, defiance; reliant, reliance; omniscient, omniscience; and so on. Middle English even had pleasant, pleasance, though we've since replaced the second word with pleasure. In theory, there is nothing wrong with coining irritance, but you must consider whether or not your audience would understand the word--or if you would do better to use one that already exists.

Is “irritance” not a word?

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