What's the difference between fractious and irascible?

Fractious


Definition:

  • (a.) Apt to break out into a passion; apt to scold; cross; snappish; ugly; unruly; as, a fractious man; a fractious horse.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Instead of healing the nation after a fractious referendum he inflamed the situation.
  • (2) Euromaidan was a delayed echo of the social unrest wave , driven by the country's economic failure; it collided with a diplomatic situation that was already fractious over Syria.
  • (3) The sale of Vodafone's 45% stake in its US joint venture to its partner Verizon Communications would end 13 years of an often fractious shared ownership.
  • (4) In a sign of how coalition relations will remain fractious until the election in May 2015, the deputy prime minister said: "You've got a Conservative party now who are driven, it seems to me, by two very clear ideological impulses.
  • (5) It takes a rare company to unite the rest of the fractious British media industry.
  • (6) Which is that when we – my dad driving, my mum alongside, a 16- or 17-year-old fractious me in the backseat, my younger sister and brother – headed down a remote country road, I can’t remember what language the road sign saying DO NOT ENTER was actually in.
  • (7) However, following later abortions at greater than 20 weeks, the rare but catastrophic occurrence of live births can lead to fractious controversy over neonatal management.
  • (8) The two latter kingdoms were reunited in the century that followed – but the presence of a third dynasty suggests that their fractious relationship and subsequent amalgamation may have been more complex than initially thought.
  • (9) Livingstone, the former London mayor, whose fractious relationship with the Standard reached a low point with his Nazi jibe at Jewish reporter Oliver Finegold , remains defiantly unapologetic about the incident and holds a healthy hatred of the title, now majority-owned by Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev.
  • (10) We don’t want to expend too much energy in training because of the humidity but we stay here, we play, and then go back to Manchester for two more weeks of preparation before the first official game.” Mourinho and Guardiola brushed off the question of whether they would shake hands beforehand because of the fractious nature of their rivalry when formerly in charge of Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively.
  • (11) Still, while she may be blocked from the top job, the ruling, military-backed Union Solidarity and Development party is facing increasing fractiousness within its ranks.
  • (12) But read between the lines of this truncated character sketch and you also get a glimpse of what has been a sometimes fractious career.
  • (13) Multiple fractious arguments about the internet dominate headlines these days, but ultimately they are all battles in a single war.
  • (14) After the creed and some Benjamin Britten, and a blessing and a long round of applause, the man charged with holding together the fractious global Anglican communion as it struggles with the vexed issues of women bishops and same-sex marriage processed out of the cathedral and into the bitterly cold spring afternoon.
  • (15) The left's Monsieur Ordinary will now be called upon to demonstrate extraordinary leadership skills: first to reunite his party, then, in a more problematic and pressing task, to reunite the fractious French left, before launching his presidential campaign.
  • (16) This had been awkward, a fractious occasion which saw players from both sides dismissed before the interval, but it ended up feeling like a show of strength played out largely to a tempo Chelsea imposed.
  • (17) Other speakers nervously approached applause lines not knowing whether they would be booed or cheered by the fractious crowd.
  • (18) Recent collaboration between traditionally fractious teaching unions to oppose cuts to the school rebuilding programme gained more traction than the usual grumbles about pay because it spoke to parents as well as professionals.
  • (19) The entry into the race of the MP for Wallasey, Angela Eagle, puts Merseyside at the centre of what is shaping up to be one of the most fractious Labour contests since the days of Militant in the 1980s.
  • (20) Lygo, who had a fractious relationship with Duncan, has been at Channel 4 this time around since 2003, rejoining after a two-year stint at Channel Five.

Irascible


Definition:

  • (a.) Prone to anger; easily provoked or inflamed to anger; choleric; irritable; as, an irascible man; an irascible temper or mood.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I learned that the hard way: when I was younger, I played the part of the erratic, irascible drunk in order to have something to write about.
  • (2) All round Europe there have been political earthquakes in a volatile anti-politics age: the surprise is that Britain’s scratchy, irascible electorate hasn’t expressed its underlying anger that ordinary people paid the price for the bankers’ crash.
  • (3) Kaczyński is behaving like Józef Piłsudski, the brilliant but irascible prewar leader who brought Poland back to independence in 1918.
  • (4) The mother is irascible, the father aloof; on the other hand, the parental combination "mother and father affectionate" is more common.
  • (5) The ability to be a good listener, unflappable and patient enough to deal with irascible family members, mediating family spats and calming ruffled feathers also helps.
  • (6) But she's not bad as the partner of an Iraq-bound soldier in Timeless: perhaps a bit plummier than you might expect a squaddie's wife required to live with her irascible great-grandmother in a tiny house to be, but certainly nothing like the disaster the world has come to expect from supermodels demonstrating their polymath abilities.
  • (7) Nancy's novels and Jessica's memoirs offered a beguiling - and friends thought - inaccurate picture of the extraordinary life lived out chez Mitford under the irascible gaze of Lord Redesdale ("Uncle Matthew" in Love in a Cold Climate), celebrated for his dislike of foreigners and his daughters' friends, disparaged collectively as "sewers".
  • (8) In 1959, he starred in Carol Reed's Our Man In Havana, and a year later gave a brilliantly unpleasant Scottish impersonation of an irascible soldier in Tunes Of Glory.
  • (9) Known for his irascibility, the writer has in one sense softened in late middle age.
  • (10) Now the Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, famous for giving ruthlessly short shrift to politicians, has confirmed that his irascible on-screen attitude towards Westminster is more than skin deep.
  • (11) But his less enthusiastic answer about Bannon comes amid reports of infighting in the Trump White House, all of which place the gruff, irascible Bannon at the center.
  • (12) The clinico-pathological characteristics of the case were as follows: Fibrillary gliosis of the midbrain and pontine reticular formation corresponded clinically to personality changes: The patient had formerly been irascible and became extremely mild-mannered.
  • (13) All good knockabout stuff and the makings of a legend - irascible, menacing, self-important, egoistical.
  • (14) His father was an irascible, blind barrister, the Mortimer of Mortimer on Wills, Probate and Divorce.
  • (15) Yet, if you speak to some at Shirebrook, she seems to portray an image that can be as irascible as charming.
  • (16) Though more conservative in his politics, McAvoy, with his irascible personality and his unfortunate attitude to authority, is thought to be based on the former MSNBC news host Keith Olbermann, who quit the network after a very public falling-out, going then to the upstart Current TV channel, which he left in March this year after another row with the management.
  • (17) Typical Munchausen behaviors such as irascibility, the desperate search for care, and pseudologia fantastica, may be understood as solutions to problems created by brain damage.
  • (18) Wrestling with an opponent who will not recognise the prejudice in a phrase like "hideous Jewish face" had finally pushed Rampton, who cultivates a manner of curmudgeonly irascibility, into a foul mood.
  • (19) What is quickly turning into a public relations nightmare for the irascible Rodman – whose fellow players looked like they would rather be anywhere but Pyongyang during his tetchy pre-game interview with CNN on Tuesday – can only have helped burnish Kim's reputation, at least at home.
  • (20) It was an unexpected flash of humanity from this irascible stickler for social propriety.