exasperate
Syllables: ex·as·per·ateUK/ɪɡˈzæsp(ə)ɹeɪt/
exasperate verb: to tax the patience of; irk, frustrate, vex, provoke, annoy; to make angry.
Verb (1)
exasperate (third-person singular simple present exasperates, present participle exasperating, simple past and past participle exasperated)
- To tax the patience of; irk, frustrate, vex, provoke, annoy; to make angry.
- And this report
Hath so exasperate [sic] the king that he
Prepares for some attempt of war.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount... - The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- aggravate, rile, annoy, nettle, rankle, ruffle, sting, burn someone's ass, antagonize, bother
- And this report
Adjective
exasperate (comparative more exasperate, superlative most exasperate)
- Exasperated.
- And this report
Hath ſo exaſperate their King, that hee
Prepares for ſome attempt of Warre.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- And this report
- Exasperated; embittered.
- Thersites. Do I curse thee?
Patroclus. Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.
Thersites. No! why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleave-silk […]c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and... - Like swallows which the exasperate dying year
Sets spinning […]1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Fourth Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, →OCLC, page 177
- Thersites. Do I curse thee?
Verb (2)
exasperate (third-person singular simple present exasperates, present participle exasperating, simple past and past participle exasperated)
- To overaspirate the letter h, or to aspirate it whenever it begins a word, once a common form of hypercorrection.
- quoted (from Punch magazine) in 2005, David Crystal, The Stories of English
COCKNEY HOBSERVATION. — Cockneys are not the only people who drop or exasperate the 'h's.' It is done by common people in the provinces, and you may laugh at them for it.
- quoted (from Punch magazine) in 2005, David Crystal, The Stories of English
exasperate meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
exasperate in Tamil
- எரிச்சலூட்டு, கடுப்புண்டாக்கு
exasperate in Bengali
- চরমভাবে বিরক্ত, ক্ষুব্ধ করা
exasperate in Malayalam
- ശല്യപ്പെടുത്തുക, ഗുരുതരമാക്കുക, പ്രകോപിപ്പിക്കുക, കടുത്ത ഈർഷ്യ, പ്രകോപനം, ക്രോധോദ്ദിപനം
exasperate in Kannada
- ಉದ್ರೇಕಿಸು, ಕೆರಳಿಸು, ಕೆಣಕು, ತೀವ್ರಗೊಳಿಸು, ರೇಗಿಸು
More languagesFewer languages
- exasperate in Persian
- کفر کسی را در آوردن kofr-e kasi râ dar âvardan
Examples of exasperate in a sentence
- [S]he exasperates her security men by acting as if she were protected by some invisible shield.1987 January 5, “Woman of the Year: Corazon Aquino”, in Time:
- News that Adam Crozier, Royal Mail chief executive, is set to receive a bumper bonus will exasperate postal workers.2007 June 4, “Loyal Mail”, in Times Online, UK, retrieved 07 Oct 2010:
Synonyms of exasperate
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of exasperate
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | exasperates |
| present participle | exasperating |
| past participle | exasperated |
| past | exasperated |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | more exasperate |
| superlative | most exasperate |
Origin of exasperate
First attested in 1534; borrowed from Latin exasperātus, the perfect passive participle of Latin exasperō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from ex (“out of; thoroughly”) + asperō (“to make rough”), from asper (“rough”). Participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
A pun on the usual sense of exasperate (to annoy) and aspirate.
Words formed from exasperate
Words that rhyme with exasperate
Questions about exasperate
- What does exasperate mean?
- Exasperate means to tax the patience of; irk, frustrate, vex, provoke, annoy; to make angry.
- What is exasperate in Tamil?
- Exasperate in Tamil is எரிச்சலூட்டு, கடுப்புண்டாக்கு. See Exasperate meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use exasperate in a sentence?
- [S]he exasperates her security men by acting as if she were protected by some invisible shield.
- What part of speech is exasperate?
- Exasperate can be a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce exasperate?
- Exasperate is pronounced /ɪɡˈzæsp(ə)ɹeɪt/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of exasperate?
- The past tense of exasperate is exasperated.
Words near exasperate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: exasperate (page history and authors); exasperate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); exasperate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); exasperate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); exasperate (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-exasperate.ogg.
Cite this entry: “exasperate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/exasperate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.