exasperate
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Pronunciation [edit]
Verb [edit]
exasperate (third-person singular simple present exasperates, present participle exasperating, simple past and past participle exasperated)
- To frustrate, vex, provoke, or annoy; to make angry.
- circa 1611, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 3, sc. 6:
- this report
- Hath so exasperate the king that he
- Prepares for some attempt of war.
- 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, ch. 3:
- 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.
- 1853, Charles Dickens, Bleak House, ch. 11:
- Beadle goes into various shops and parlours, examining the inhabitants; always shutting the door first, and by exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy, exasperating the public.
- 1987, "Woman of the Year: Corazon Aquino," Time, 5 Jan:
- [S]he exasperates her security men by acting as if she were protected by some invisible shield.
- 2007, "Loyal Mail," Times Online (UK), 4 June (retrieved 7 Oct 2010):
- News that Adam Crozier, Royal Mail chief executive, is set to receive a bumper bonus will exasperate postal workers.
- circa 1611, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 3, sc. 6:
Translations [edit]
frustrate, vex, annoy
|
|
Adjective [edit]
exasperate (comparative more exasperate, superlative most exasperate)
- (obsolete) Exasperated; embittered.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)
- Elizabeth Browning
- Like swallows which the exasperate dying year / Sets spinning.
See also [edit]
Latin [edit]
Verb [edit]
exasperāte
- second-person plural present active imperative of exasperō
