annoyance

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English anoiaunce,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French anoiance,^[4][5][6][3] also enoiance,^[7][3] which meant boredom or weariness in the 12th century and irritation from the 14th.^[4] It is formed from anoier (“to trouble, bore, irritate”), the source of annoy, and the suffix -ance.^[4][3][5] The verb comes from Vulgar Latin *inodiō (“to make odious”), from the phrase Latin in odiō (“in hatred, odious”), from odium (“hatred”).^[8][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action of annoying or harming, and a thing that troubles someone: both in Chaucer's Parson's Tale (about 1390), which speaks of suffering the annoyances and wrongs that men do.^[4][2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century, as "vexation, trouble".^[7]

Semantic evolution

Before annoyance was borrowed, English used the noun annoy (about 1200) for a feeling of displeasure.^[7] The sense "the state of being annoyed", now the main one, is recorded from 1502, and "a person or thing that annoys" from the start.^[4][7][5] The word was once stronger: in older use an annoyance could be something harmful to the public, a nuisance in the legal sense,^[4] and Johnson (1755) defined it as "that which annoys; that which hurts", quoting Shakespeare's King John.^[9] From 1745 an annoyance jury in Westminster examined public nuisances.^[4] The action sense, the act of annoying someone, is now rare.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1390 – the act of annoying or harming; a thing that annoys.^[4][2]
• 1502 – the state or feeling of being annoyed.^[4] Etymonline dates this sense to about 1500.^[7]
• 1745 – annoyance jury, a Westminster jury on public nuisances.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The feeling of being annoyed; irritation or mild anger: She could not hide her annoyance at the delay.^[10][3][4]
2. A person or thing that annoys; a nuisance: The barking dog next door was a constant annoyance.^[10][3][4]
3. The act of annoying someone; now rare.^[4][10][3]

Related words

• annoy
• ennui
• noisome
• odium
• odious

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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 f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins