exasperate

From Latin exaspero; ex (“out of; thoroughly”) + asperare (“to make rough”), from asper (“rough”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪɡˈzæsp(ə)ɹeɪt/
• (Received Pronunciation, also) IPA^(key): /ɪɡˈzɑːspəɹeɪt/

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• Rhymes: -æspəɹeɪt
• Hyphenation: ex‧as‧per‧ate

exasperate (third-person singular simple present exasperates, present participle exasperating, simple past and past participle exasperated)

1. To tax the patience of, irk, frustrate, vex, provoke, annoy; to make angry.
   • c. 1611, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 3, scene 6:

     And this report

     Hath so exasperate [sic] the king that he

     Prepares for some attempt of war.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby Dick, chapter 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, chapter 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 January 5, "Woman of the Year: Corazon Aquino," Time:

     [S]he exasperates her security men by acting as if she were protected by some invisible shield.

   • 2007 June 4, "Loyal Mail," Times Online (UK) (retrieved 7 Oct 2010):

     News that Adam Crozier, Royal Mail chief executive, is set to receive a bumper bonus will exasperate postal workers.

exasperate (comparative more exasperate, superlative most exasperate)

1. (obsolete) exasperated; embittered.
   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act V, Scene 1,

     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 […]

   • 1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman & Hall, 1857, Book 4, p. 177,

     Like swallows which the exasperate dying year

     Sets spinning […]

• asperate
• asperity

• exacerbate

• “exasperate” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.

exasperāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of exasperō