exasperating
exasperating is the present participle and gerund of exasperate.
Meaning of exasperate
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...
- Synonyms:
- aggravate, rile, annoy, nettle, rankle, ruffle, sting, burn someone's ass, antagonize, bother
- And this report
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
Adjective
exasperating (comparative more exasperating, superlative most exasperating)
- That exasperates, infuriates, annoys or irritates
- As a result, while the train was being shunted at Bombay, the buffers became locked, producing a situation most intriguing for the onlookers, but exasperating for the exalted passengers and the unhappy railway authorities.1945 September and October, C. Hamilton Ellis, “Royal Trains—V”, in Railway Magazine, page 249
Forms of exasperating
| comparative | more exasperating |
|---|---|
| superlative | most exasperating |
Words formed from exasperating
Questions about exasperating
- What does exasperating mean?
- Exasperating means that exasperates, infuriates, annoys or irritates.
- What is exasperating the present participle and gerund of?
- Exasperating is the present participle and gerund of exasperate.
- What part of speech is exasperating?
- Exasperating is an adjective.
Words near exasperating in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: exasperating (page history and authors); exasperate (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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Cite this entry: “exasperating.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/exasperating. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.