exacerbate

Etymology

The OED takes it as borrowed from Latin exacerbātus, from the past participial stem of exacerbō (“to irritate, provoke”),^[2][3][4][5] formed from ex-, here intensive, and acerbō (“to make harsh”),^[3][6] from acerbus (“harsh, bitter”),^[2][6][7] itself from acer (“sharp”).^[5][8] The American Heritage Dictionary traces it to the root Proto-Indo-European *ak-.^[6] Barnhart thinks it probably a back-formation from the earlier exacerbation, perhaps influenced by French exacerber,^[9][10] and Etymonline allows either origin.^[11] The noun is recorded before 1400 in a translation of the Pauline epistles, for the Provocation in the wilderness,^[9][12] and is from Late Latin exacerbātiō.^[9][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make a pain sharper, a disease more virulent or a feeling more bitter; to embitter or aggravate, also to embitter a person: 1660, in the History of the Wars in Scotland under Montrose.^[2][5][9] Etymonline dates it to the 1650s and Dictionary.com to 1650–60.^[11][4]

Semantic evolution

The Oxford Dictionary of English notes that the noun exacerbation first meant provocation to anger.^[13] The verb kept the Latin idea of making something harsh or bitter: Johnson (1755) defined it as to embitter, to exasperate, and to heighten any malignant quality.^[14] An intransitive use, to grow worse, is recorded from 1837.^[2] Today it usually means to make something bad, such as a problem, a conflict or an illness, even worse,^[5][11] while the sense of irritating a person survives in Collins.^[15]

Timeline

• 1660 – to make a pain, disease or bitter feeling worse; to embitter a person.^[2][5][9]
• 1837 – intransitive, to grow worse.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make something bad, such as pain, illness, a problem or a feeling, worse or more intense; to aggravate: The drought exacerbated the food shortage.^[15][5][2]
2. To exasperate or irritate a person.^[15][2]

Word family

• exacerbation
• exacerbatingly
• unexacerbated

Related words

• acerbate
• acerbity
• acerbic
• exasperate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins