Irritability, say, of Parisian taken aback (4)
I believe the answer is:
edge
'irritability' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both human attributes as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'say of parisian taken aback' is the wordplay.
'say' becomes 'eg' (both can mean 'for example').
'of parisian' becomes 'de' ('of' in French).
'taken aback' says the letters should be written backwards.
'eg'+'de'='egde'
'egde' written backwards gives 'EDGE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for edge that I've seen before include "Force" , "Upper hand" , "Border or cutting side of knife" , "Boundary; advantage" , "Move furtively; intense quality" .)