aggravate
Verb
- make worse
- "This drug aggravates the pain"
- exasperate or irritate
- To make (an offence) worse or more severe; to increase in offensiveness or heinousness.
- To make (any bad thing) worse.
- To give extra weight or intensity to; to exaggerate, to magnify.
- To pile or heap (something heavy or onerous) on or upon someone.
- To exasperate; to provoke or irritate.
Adj
- Aggravated.
- Loaded, burdened, weighed down.
- Heightened, intensified.
- Under ecclesiastical censure, excommunicated.
Examples
- He aggravated the story.
Origin / Etymology
The adjective is first attested in 1471 in Middle English, the verb in 1530; from Latin aggravātus, perfect passive participle of aggravō (“to add to the weight of, make worse, oppress, annoy”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from ad- (“to”) + gravō (“to make heavy”), from gravis (“heavy”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). See grave and compare aggrieve and aggrege. Participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
Synonyms
exacerbate, exasperate, worsen, Idioms:, With malice, add fuel to the fire, add insult to injury, adulterate, aggravate, alloy, annoy, antagonize, augment, bedevil, boil someone's piss, bother, botherate, bug, burn up, canker, cap it all off, chap someone's hide, cheese off, contaminate, corrupt, debase, debauch, defile, deflower, degrade, deteriorate, devil, disgruntle, dogpile, envenom, fan the flames, frustrate, get, get on someone's nerves, get on someone's tits, get on someone's wick, get someone's Irish up, get someone's back up, get someone's dander up, get someone's goat, get someone's nanny, get someone's nanny-goat, get under one's goat, get up, give someone the shits, grate, grind one's gears, grotch, grow, hack off, harsh one's mellow, hassle, heap on, heighten, hit someone when they are down, impair, increase, infect, intensify, irk, irritate, jazz, kick a dog when it's down, kick someone when they are down, leaven, magnify, make matters worse, molest, mommick, nark, pee off, peeve, pejorate, persecute, pile on, pique, piss off, propagate, provoke, punch down, put someone's back up, put the boot in, raise someone's hackles, rankle, rile, rile up, rise, roil, rub it in, rub salt in the wound, rub someone the wrong way, rub up the wrong way, ruffle, ruffle someone's feathers, set back, sophisticate, stain, sting, storm, strike someone when they are down, tee off, test someone's patience, throw gasoline on the fire, tick off, torque off, trouble, try one's patience, twist the knife, vex, vitiate, weaken, wind up
Antonyms
better, alleviate, ameliorate, improve, mitigate, pour oil on troubled waters, repair, restore
Scrabble Score: 14
aggravate: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordaggravate: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
aggravate: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary