【Angry】 , 【irate】 , 【indignant】 , 【wrathful】 , 【wroth】 , 【acrimonious】 and 【mad】 all mean feeling or showing strong displeasure or bad temper.

【Angry】 is applied to persons or their moods, acts, looks, or words; it is also applied to animals and by extension, because of some of its implications, to things.

• an 【angry】 bull
•  an 【angry】 boil
• an 【angry】 sky

In reference to persons it implies both emotional and physical excitement, usually exhibited as by an inflamed countenance or inflamed words or by threatening looks or speeches.

• the king is 【angry】 : see, he bites the lip
  —Shak.
• the adulteress! What a theme for 【angry】 verse!
  —Cowper

【Irate】 is applied only to persons or their looks, acts, or words; it often suggests greater exhibition of feeling than 【angry】 and, as a rule, implies loss of self-control.

• the men were getting . . . more 【irate】 and violent in their language
  —Trollope

Often it suggests a comic aspect of anger (as from the disparity between the emotion and its exciting cause).

• refractory children, over whom Mr. Spratt . . . exercised an 【irate】 surveillance
  —George Eliot

【Indignant】 , in contrast with 【irate】 , suggests righteousness in the anger and sufficiency of provocation. Often its use imputes injustice or indignity to the cause of the anger.

• let the sword speak what the 【indignant】 tongue disdains to brand thee with
  —Shelley

【Wrathful】 and the less common 【wroth】 are capable of being used where 【irate】 or 【indignant】 would be more explicit.

• his partner retreated with a 【wrathful】 shake of his head
  —Sassoon

However, they usually connote more justification of the anger than 【irate】 and more vehemence in its expression than 【indignant】 .

• the blurring and the blotching of the later Chinese school . . . provoke his 【wrathful】 condemnation
  —Binyon
• I did not know how greatly they were fools, and this made me 【wroth】
  —Kipling

【Wrathful】 like 【angry】 may be extended to things.

• the 【wrathful】 thunder of God
  —Tennyson
• a vagrant shaft of sunlight struck the ocean and turned its surface to 【wrathful】 silver
  —London

【Acrimonious】 , though sometimes still applied to a person’s temper or mood, is chiefly used to characterize intercourse and utterances. It invariably adds to 【angry】 the implication of irreconcilable difference of opinion and consequent bitterness of feeling that may be shown in accusations and recriminations.

• the dispute dragged on, becoming progressively more 【acrimonious】 , for another eleven years
  —Huxley

【Mad】 (see INSANE) as a close equivalent of 【angry】 is used chiefly in informal speech or writing.

• I was so 【mad】 the way father was talking
  —O’Flaherty
• she looked 【mad】 for a second but then she began to laugh
  —Lowry