Word.ws English Dictionary

exacerbate

Syllables: ex·acer·bateUK/ɪɡˈzæsəˌbeɪt//ɪɡˈzæsɚˌbeɪt/

exacerbate verb: to make worse (a problem, bad situation, negative feeling, etc.).

Verb

exacerbate (third-person singular simple present exacerbates, present participle exacerbating, simple past and past participle exacerbated)

  1. (transitive) To make worse (a problem, bad situation, negative feeling, etc.).
    • Near-synonym: worsen
    • The proposed shutdown would exacerbate unemployment problems.
    Synonyms:
    aggravate, worsen

exacerbate meaning in Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

exacerbate in Bengali

অধিকতর খারাপ করা, তিক্ততর করা, কোনো সমস্যা, যন্ত্রণাকে বাড়িয়ে দেওয়া

exacerbate in Malayalam

worsen, aggravate, inflame
പ്രകോപിപ്പിക്കുക, കൂടുതൽ വഷളാക്കുക, വർദ്ധിപ്പിക്കുക, ഉഗ്രമാക്കുക, കടുപ്പം വർദ്ധിപ്പിക്കുക, ഗൗരവതരമാക്കുക

exacerbate in Kannada

ಕೆಡಿಸು, ಹಿಂಸೆ, ಹೆಚ್ಚಿಸು, ಕೆರಳಿಸು, ಉದ್ರೇಕಿಸು

Examples of exacerbate in a sentence

  • Overcrowding exacerbates the many ills of social defeat within these social hierarchies based on dominance.
  • But it exacerbated the dizzy and vertiginous feeling I’ve been getting whenever I think about A.I. lately.
  • The increasingly dysfunctional socio-economic conditions exacerbated the increase in extreme healing practices and general religious conmanship.

All 40 example sentences with exacerbate

Synonyms of exacerbate

Forms of exacerbate

third-person singular presentexacerbates
present participleexacerbating
past participleexacerbated
pastexacerbated

Past tense of exacerbate: exacerbated

Origin of exacerbate

First attested in 1660; borrowed from Latin exacerbātus, perfect passive participle of Latin exacerbō (“to provoke”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from ex- (“out of; thoroughly”) + acerbō (“to embitter, harshen or worsen”).

Words formed from exacerbate

Questions about exacerbate

What does exacerbate mean?
Exacerbate means to make worse (a problem, bad situation, negative feeling, etc.).
What is exacerbate in Bengali?
Exacerbate in Bengali is অধিকতর খারাপ করা, তিক্ততর করা, কোনো সমস্যা. See Exacerbate meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is exacerbate?
Exacerbate is a verb.
How do you pronounce exacerbate?
Exacerbate is pronounced /ɪɡˈzæsɚˌbeɪt/ (US).
What is the past tense of exacerbate?
The past tense of exacerbate is exacerbated.

Words near exacerbate in the dictionary

  1. exa-
  2. exabit
  3. exabits
  4. exabyte
  5. exabytes
  6. exacerbate
  7. exacerbated
  8. exacerbates
  9. exacerbating
  10. exacerbatingly
  11. exacerbation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: exacerbate (page history and authors); Exacerbate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); exacerbate (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); exacerbate (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-exacerbate.ogg.

Cite this entry: “exacerbate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/exacerbate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.