Etymologically
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annoy

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Pronunciation

  • /əˈnoɪ̯/, /əˈnɔɪ̯/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English anoien, also anuien and enoien,[2][3] borrowed from Anglo-Norman anuier, also anoier,[4][3][5] variants of Old French enoier, modern French ennuyer, to bother, harass, weary, irritate.[4][6][7] The French verb comes, apparently, from Late Latin inodiō (“to make hateful”), a rare word of the Vetus Latina,[4][6][5] formed on the Latin phrase in odiō, as in mihi in odiō est (“it is hateful to me”).[4][8][6][9] Here odiō is the ablative of odium (“hatred”),[10][11][7] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *od- (“to hate”).[3] The American Heritage Dictionary gives the Late Latin step as Vulgar Latin *inodiō.[10] The same Latin verb gave Italian annoiare and Spanish enojar.[12][13] The OED thinks that the senses of harm and attack were reinforced by anuire (“to hurt, harm”).[4] The noun, recorded earlier than the verb, is inherited from Middle English anoi, borrowed from Old French anoi, also anui and enui, formed from the French verb;[4][11][12] the later French form of that noun was borrowed in the 18th century as ennui.[7][3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

As a noun, a feeling of discomfort or weariness, also suffering or affliction: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle.[4] As a verb, to worry, concern or disturb someone: about 1275, in the Kentish Sermons,[4] about 1275 also in Barnhart.[5]

Semantic evolution

The word first had a much stronger sense than today's.[13][9] In Middle English it ranged from "to worry, perplex" and "to tire, bore" to "to harm, injure" and, of an enemy, "to attack, oppress";[4][3] the Anglo-Norman verb had already meant to harass, trouble, weary and bore from the early 12th century.[14] Chaucer used the verb 36 times.[15] The sense of harming fell out of use by the 19th century, and that of tiring someone in the 16th, leaving the milder modern meaning, "to irritate", recorded in the passive from about 1300 and in the active from about 1335.[4] The intransitive use, "to cause annoyance", is recorded from 1848, in a letter of Charlotte Brontë.[4] The military sense survives in persistent attacks on an enemy territory.[4][16] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "injury; molestation; trouble", quoting Shakespeare's Richard III,[17] and the noun is now archaic or poetic.[11][18] In 19th-century dialect, from Yorkshire to Somerset, annoy could still mean to hurt or damage, even of a thing, and in Ulster annoyed meant upset or distressed.[19]

Timeline

  • c. 1225 – noun, discomfort, weariness, suffering.[4]
  • c. 1275 – verb, to worry, concern, disturb (obsolete by 1616).[4][5]
  • c. 1300 – in the passive, irritated; also to tire or bore (obsolete by 1533); noun, a source of trouble.[4]
  • a. 1325 – to harm or injure (obsolete by 1831).[4]
  • c. 1335 – in the active, to irritate or vex.[4]
  • c. 1380 – to attack or oppress an enemy.[4]
  • 1848 – intransitive, to cause annoyance.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To make someone a little angry or impatient; to irritate or vex: The dripping tap annoyed her all night.[16][11][4]
  2. To be a source of irritation, without an object: Small faults that annoy rather than offend.[4]
  3. To harass with repeated attacks: Raiders annoyed the garrison throughout the winter.[16][11][4]
  4. (obsolete, c. 1300–1533) To tire or weary.[4][18]

Noun

  1. (archaic) A feeling of vexation; annoyance.[11][18][4]

Word family

  • annoyer
  • annoyance
  • annoying

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  11. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  15. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  16. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)