irritate

Breathing air with high levels of NO2 can irritate airways, cause coughing, wheezing or make it difficult to breathe and worsen diseases like asthma.

From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026

Inhaling MMA can irritate the lungs and, at high levels of exposure, can cause severe respiratory distress and hospitalization; long-term exposure has been linked to serious organ damage.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 27, 2026

Short-term exposure can irritate the lungs and nasal passages, and cause nausea and dizziness, said Dr. Regina Chinsio-Kwong, Orange County’s health officer.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 23, 2026

And yet, a balancing act lies ahead because Beijing also "does not want to irritate Trump", she adds.

From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2026

Twice in a minute she’s managed to irritate me.

From "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett

Talk of an eventual rebound irritates investors like Christopher Poch, whose firm Promethium Advisors owns 11,000 Whirlpool shares.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026

But when it goes away, so do our nightly doses of Colbert’s affable clowning, the kind that irritates thin-skinned despots in a way other comics can’t quite match.

From Salon ● May 21, 2026

B.J. irritates the other characters with yet another drum solo, the self-aware jokes about his self-centeredness would land better if “K-Pops!” wasn’t convinced that the audience wants as much of him on-screen as possible.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 26, 2026

"You think - is this is how people are perceiving us? When they say nasty things about him or call me a gold-digger, it irritates me."

From BBC ● Dec. 9, 2025

What irritates me most about him is his natural goodness, his inborn selflessness.

From "Divergent" by Veronica Roth

His protagonist is a writer who’s trying to build a relationship with his grandchild, Ben, while navigating the half-suppressed scorn of his daughter-in-law and the irritated complacency of his son.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

The customer seemed irritated that the answer required any effort on her part.

From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2026

The incident did not appear premeditated, with Itauma looking irritated by what Hrgovic was saying before the shove.

From BBC ● Aug. 28, 2026

Canada's regional leaders said previously that the United States was particularly irritated by one retaliatory measure: the removal of US alcohol and wine from liquor stores.

From Barron's ● Aug. 22, 2026

She sat on the stool beside him, turning on the cash register and pounding her pin number into the screen, trying not to look too irritated.

From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny

Conversations with others is one thing, and watching movies without headphones is forbidden, but dictating out loud when she could type is an irritating loophole.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 18, 2026

Having sold her show about young, hip and irritating urbanites to HBO at the age of 24, Dunham was one of the first millennial showrunners, period.

From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026

The most irritating thing about “Mutiny” is that it has decent ideas that it floats and then casts adrift.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026

They said the coverage of the Instagram re-post row had been "deeply irritating" but added that the review was not directly linked to that incident.

From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026

My father has the irritating habit of saying the same thing whenever something bad happens.

From "Challenger Deep" by Neal Shusterman