Abirritating

Part of speech: verb, adjective

Definitions

1. Serving to calm or lessen irritation in the body, especially a sensitive nerve or tissue
2. Having the effect of soothing a tissue or organ so that it becomes less reactive to stimulation
3. Describing a substance or agent that reduces excessive sensitivity and calms an overly reactive part of the body

Etymology: "Abirritating" is built from "abirritate," which combines the prefix "ab-" with "irritate." The prefix comes from Latin, where "ab" meant "away from" or "off," and in "abirritate" it works in the opposite direction to the irritation it names: rather than stirring something up, the word means to take the irritation away. Irritate itself comes from the Latin "irritare," meaning to provoke, excite, or incite. English used "irritate" for stirring up a bodily or emotional response long before it became a medical term, so the prefix gave physicians a neat way to name the reverse action. A substance that soothes an overreactive tissue has, in effect, been turned against its own irritation. The result is a deliberately negative coinage in a technical register. Its meaning is confined to medicine and physiology, where it describes agents that reduce excessive sensitivity. It is a word for specialists, and its logic is visible in its parts.

Synonyms: soothing, calming

Antonyms: irritating, provoking