Sometimes certain words keep popping up in your manuscript and you wish there were other forms of the word you could substitute. Or maybe you’re looking for a more specific term for the basic word you have in mind. Well, if the word you’re using is ANGER or ANGRY, here are 103 useful alternatives:
1. Acrid: extremely harsh (or an unpleasant taste or smell)
2. Acrimonious: harshly unpleasant
3. Aggravated: angrily agitated
4. Angered: made angry
5. Annoyed: angry about being disturbed
6. Antagonistic: angrily opposed
7. Antipathetic: expressing aggression or aversion
8. Apoplectic: violently angry, from the word apoplexy, meaning having a stroke
9. Ballistic: explosively angry, from the word meaning projectile flight
10. Bellicose: aggressively angry, from the synonym for warlike
11. Belligerent: see bellicose
12. Bent out of shape: as in stooped over while screaming
13. Beside oneself: seeming out of character
14. Bitter: resentful
15. Blue in the face: see frustrated, from the idea of facial discoloration caused by extreme emotion
16. Boiling: extremely angry, meaning being agitated like heated water
17. Bristling: defensively angry, like an animal’s hair bristling as it responds to a threat
18. Burning: extremely angry, from the body overheating due to intense feeling
19. Caustic: cruelly angry, or sarcastic
20. Chagrin: distress caused by humiliation or failure
21. Cheesed off: see frustrated (also “bored” or “disgusted”)
22. Choleric: easily angered
23. Churlish: disrespectfully angry
24. Cold: emotionally remote anger
25. Contrary: uncooperatively angry
26. Cool: angry but emotions are held in check
27. Cross
28. Disgruntlement: ill-humored or discontented
29. Discontent
30. Displeasure
31. Embittered: made upset
32. Enraged: violently angry
33. Exasperated: see frustrated
34. Fired up: see hot
35. Fit to be tied: extremely angry, suggesting that the angry person should be restrained
36. Flare up: so angry you might turn into fire
37. Fly off the handle: refers to loose ax head flying off the handle when swung
38. Foaming: so angry as to suggest insanity caused by hydrophobia (rabies), as in foaming at the mouth is symptomatic of the disease
39. Frustrated: upset due to obstacles or challenges
40. Fuming: extremely angry, from the association of a volcano or other heated natural phenomenon
41. Fury: destructive rage; refers to mythic Furies (avenging Greek deities who torment criminals and inflict plagues)
42. Furious: intensely angry
43. Galled: fret or wear by friction; become sore from rubbing
44. Go berserk: ancient Scandinavian warrior frenzied in battle and held to be invulnerable
45. Going crook: losing one’s temper
46. Hopping: jumping up and down to express anger
47. Hopping mad: see hopping
48. Horn-mad: extremely angry
49. Hostile: actively intimidating, unfriendly, or resistant
50. Hot: physical discomfort caused by anger
51. Hot under the collar: see hot
52. Icy: see cold
53. Impassioned
54. In a lather: referring to ‘lathering at the mouth’ from Rabies
55. In high dudgeon: state of indignation
56. Incensed: see indignant
57. Indignant: angry because of a real or perceived slight or unjust attack
58. Inflamed: see hot
59. Infuriated: see furious
60. Incense: set on fire
61. Irascibility: easily provoked anger
62. Irate: see furious
63. Ireful: see irate
64. Irk: irritate
65. Livid: intensely angry to the point of being unable to control oneself (livid, however, can also mean “bruised,” “pale,” or “colorful,” with the second sense associated with pain, shock, or fear)
66. Mad: insane or crazy; also used to mean angry as in unable to think clearly due to madness
67. Malcontent: displeased
68. Outraged: angry about an offense
69. Passionate: easily angered
70. Peeve: resentful
71. Perturbed: upset (or confused)
72. Pissed off: aggravated
73. Piqued: aroused through provocation
74. Provoke: arouse to feeling or action
75. Rabid: see foaming
76. Raging: see furious
77. Rancorous: malevolently angry
78. Rankled: resentful
79. Ranting: irrationally angry
80. Raving: see ranting
81. Riled: upset; quickened heartbeat
82. Roiled: see riled
83. Ruffled feathers: as in a bird’s raised feathers to intimidate
84. Seeing red: so angry that one’s vision is blurred by excess blood flow in the eyes
85. Seething: repressing violent anger
86. Shirty: British for irritated
87. Smoldering: see seething
88. Sore: see indignant
89. Soreheaded: see indignant
90. Steamed: see hot
91. Steaming: see hot
92. Storming: anger suggestive of stormy weather
93. Stormy: see storming
94. Teed off: annoyed
95. Tetchiness: (tetchy) another form of touchy or irritable
96. Testiness: easily annoyed
97. Ticked: angry; also “ticked off”
98. Vexation: troubling
99. Vitriolic: see caustic
100. Worked up: upset
101. Wrathful: see furious
102. Wroth: see furious
103. Wrought up: see “worked up”
Rebecca Ryals Russell.
