Word.ws English Dictionary

vexed

/ˈvɛkst/

vexed adjective: annoyed, irritated or distressed. Also the simple past and past participle of vex.

Adjective

vexed (comparative more vexed, superlative most vexed)

  1. annoyed, irritated or distressed
    • She became more and more vexed as she struggled to cope with the demands of the job.
    • He would be left in no doubt that they were annoyed. He might even go so far as to deduce that they were quite vexed.1990, Terry Pratchett, Eric, page 72
  2. much debated, discussed or disputed
    • The question, however, as to whether rinderpest bile is capable of producing the disease in a herd innoculated with it is a very vexed one, and round this point heated controversies have been waged in other places than in Natal.1901 December 6, H. Watkins-Pitchford, “Rinderpest”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 20, page 610
    • I leave aside the vexed questions about whether one or two peploi were woven and presented to Athena during the Greater (every four years) and Lesser (every year) Panathenaic festivals […]2004, Mary Stieber, The Poetics of Appearance in the Attic Korai

Also used as

vexed is also the simple past and past participle of vex.

vexed meaning in Hindi, Arabic and Thai

vexed in Hindi

annoyed, irritated or distressed
तंग taṅg

vexed in Arabic

annoyed, irritated or distressed
زَعْلَان zaʕlān

vexed in Thai

annoyed, irritated or distressed
หงุดหงิด ngùt-ngìt

Examples of vexed in a sentence

  • Billy's professor was vexed by his continued failure to improve his grades.
  • This mystery has vexed us all hitherto; perhaps you will be able to shed light upon the matter, Inspector.
  • Martin Jol barely paused for thought before answering a perennially vexed question.

All 19 example sentences with vexed

Forms of vexed

comparativemore vexed
superlativemost vexed

Origin of vexed

From Middle English vexed, vexede, vexit, vixid, equivalent to vex + -ed.

Words formed from vexed

Words that rhyme with vexed

3 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about vexed

What does vexed mean?
Vexed means annoyed, irritated or distressed.
What is vexed in Hindi?
Vexed in Hindi is तंग (taṅg). See Vexed meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is vexed?
Vexed is an adjective.
How do you pronounce vexed?
Vexed is pronounced /ˈvɛkst/.

Words near vexed in the dictionary

  1. vexatious
  2. vexatiously
  3. vexatiousness
  4. vexatory
  5. vexe
  6. vexed
  7. vexedly
  8. vexedness
  9. vexeing
  10. vexel
  11. vexels

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vexed (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-vexed.wav.

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