Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To make very angry or impatient; annoy greatly.
  • transitive verb To increase the gravity or intensity of.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Irritated; inflamed.
  • In botany, rough; covered with hard, projecting points.
  • To irritate to a high degree; make very angry; provoke to rage; enrage: as, to exasperate an opponent.
  • To incite by means of irritation; stimulate through anger or rage; stir up.
  • To make grievous or more grievous; aggravate; embitter: as, to exasperate enmity.
  • To augment the intensity of; exacerbate: as, to exasperate inflammation or a part inflamed.
  • Synonyms Provoke, Incense, Exasperate, Irritate; vex, chafe, nettle, sting. The first four words all refer to the production of angry and generally demonstrative feeling. Irritate often has to do with the nerves, but all have to do with the mind. Provoke is perhaps the most sudden; exasperate is the strongest and least self-controlled; incense stands second in these respects.
  • To increase in severity.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective obsolete Exasperated; imbittered.
  • transitive verb To irritate in a high degree; to provoke; to enrage; to excite or to inflame the anger of.
  • transitive verb To make grievous, or more grievous or malignant; to aggravate; to imbitter.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To frustrate, vex, provoke, or annoy; to make angry.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make furious
  • verb exasperate or irritate
  • verb make worse

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin exasperāre, exasperāt- : ex-, intensive pref.; see ex– + asperāre, to make rough (from asper, rough).]

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