exasperate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin exasperātus, the past participle of exasperō (“to roughen, irritate, provoke”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} possibly with the influence of Middle French exaspérer.^[4] The Latin verb is formed from ex- (“thoroughly”) and asperō (“to make rough”),^[7][3][5] from asper (“rough, harsh”),^[7][8][9] which Etymonline calls of unknown origin.^[2] The same adjective is the source of asperity.^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To irritate a person or provoke to anger: 1534, in a letter of Sir Thomas More.^[8][4][3] Etymonline dates it to the 1530s, and Dictionary.com to 1525–35.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

The Latin verb moved from "make rough" to "irritate, provoke", and English took over mainly the figurative use, but the 16th century also tried it nearer the literal meaning.^[2][8] Between 1552 and 1682 it could mean to chafe or make sore,^[8][10] and between 1597 and 1765 to make something harsh, such as language or sounds, or to make laws more severe.^[8][10] It was also used of embittering a feeling (from 1548), of making a pain or trouble worse (1561–1750) and of increasing the violence of a disease (from 1611).^[8] Johnson (1755) listed the two surviving lines as "to provoke; to enrage" and "to heighten a difference; to aggravate", with the first quoted from King Lear.^[11] Dictionary.com now marks the sense "increase the intensity of" as archaic, while the American Heritage Dictionary and Collins list it without a label.^[6][7][12] The old participle exasperate, recorded from 1540, was replaced by exasperated, and survives as an archaic adjective^[8][13] and as a botanical term, recorded from 1866, for a rough surface with short stiff points.^[8][6]

Timeline

• 1534 – to irritate a person, to provoke to anger.^[8][3][4]
• 1540 – past participle and later adjective, exasperate.^[8]
• 1548 – to embitter or intensify a feeling.^[8][10]
• 1552 – to make sore or chafe (obsolete by 1682).^[8][10]
• 1561 – to make more painful, to aggravate (obsolete by 1750).^[8][10]
• 1597 – to make harsh or rugged (obsolete by 1765).^[8][10]
• 1611 – to increase the violence of a disease or pain.^[8]
• 1866 – adjective, in botany, rough with short stiff points.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To irritate someone greatly; to make very angry or impatient: The endless roadworks exasperated the commuters.^{[7][12][3][9]}
2. To make something unpleasant more intense or severe; to aggravate (marked archaic by Dictionary.com): The dust exasperated his cough.^[7][12][6]

Adjective

1. (botany) Rough, covered with short stiff points or prickles.^{[12][8][6][3]}
2. (archaic) Exasperated.^[3][8][13]

Word family

• exasperatedly
• exasperater
• exasperatingly

Related words

• asperate
• asperity
• exasperation
• exacerbate

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d e f Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press