rankle
Syllables: ran·kle/ˈɹæŋ.kəl/
rankle verb: to cause irritation, bitterness or acrimony.
Verb
rankle (third-person singular simple present rankles, present participle rankling, simple past and past participle rankled)
- To cause irritation, bitterness or acrimony.
- My colleague's gratuitous criticism still rankles with me.
- […] and the alliance which was dictated by sound policy, by family ties, and by just fear of England's sea power, was further assured to France by recent and still existing injuries that must continue to rankle with Spain. […]1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan, chapter IX, in The Influence of Sea Power upon History
- To fester.
- a splinter rankles in the flesh
- But yet the cause and root of all his ill,
Inward corruption and infected sin,
Not purg'd nor heald, behind remained still,
And festring sore did rankle yet within […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
Noun
rankle (plural rankles)
- A festering, embittering object or condition, either mental, or a physical sore or ulcer.
- To this the Prince appeared to acquiesce; but I saw it did not please, and left a rankle in his mind.1795, James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury, Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury., R. Bentley, published 1844, page 220
rankle meaning in Hindi, Malayalam and Kannada
rankle in Hindi
- to rankle or cause recurring irritation, displeasure, or resentment
- खटकना khaṭaknā
rankle in Malayalam
- കോപമുണർത്തുക, അസഹ്യപ്പെട്ടുത്തുക, വ്രണപ്പെടുത്തുക, വേദനപ്പെടുത്തുക
rankle in Kannada
- ನೋಯು, ಕೆರಳಿಸು, ರೇಗಿಸು, ಮನಸ್ಸನ್ನು ಕೊರೆಯುತ್ತಿರು, ಮನಸ್ಸಿಗೆ ಕಹಿಯಾಗಿರು, ಕಹಿನೆನಪಾಗಿರು
Examples of rankle in a sentence
- Allie might think it pretty pathetic that he'd remembered that comment from the first night they met, but it had rankled him then and, to some degree, it rankled him now.2014, Emily Dalton, A Baby for Lord Roderick:
- What most rankles me about the term is how casually it is being applied to schools—temples of learning—and especially to children.2022 June 14, John McWhorter, “Republicans Want to ‘Harden’ Schools. That’s an Awful Euphemism.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
Synonyms of rankle
Forms of rankle
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | rankles |
| present participle | rankling |
| past participle | rankled |
| past | rankled |
| Noun | |
| plural | rankles |
Origin of rankle
From Middle English ranklen, ranclen, from Old French rancler, räoncler, draoncler (“to ulcerate, to form a boil”), from Old French draoncle (“a boil”), from Latin dracunculus (“little serpent”), diminutive of Latin dracō (“serpent, dragon”).
Words formed from rankle
Words that rhyme with rankle
Questions about rankle
- What does rankle mean?
- Rankle means to cause irritation, bitterness or acrimony.
- What is rankle in Hindi?
- Rankle in Hindi is खटकना (khaṭaknā). See Rankle meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use rankle in a sentence?
- Allie might think it pretty pathetic that he'd remembered that comment from the first night they met, but it had rankled him then and, to some degree, it rankled him now.
- What part of speech is rankle?
- Rankle can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce rankle?
- Rankle is pronounced /ˈɹæŋ.kəl/.
- What is the past tense of rankle?
- The past tense of rankle is rankled.
Words near rankle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: rankle (page history and authors); खटकना (Hindi) (page history and authors); rankle (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); rankle (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-rankle.ogg, en-us-rankle.ogg.
Cite this entry: “rankle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rankle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.