irritate

Verb

Verb Forms: irritated, irritating, irritates

• To annoy or exasperate; to cause physical inflammation.
• cause annoyance in; disturb, especially by minor irritations
  • "It irritates me that she never closes the door after she leaves"
• excite to an abnormal condition, or chafe or inflame
  • "Aspirin irritates my stomach"
• excite to some characteristic action or condition, such as motion, contraction, or nervous impulse, by the application of a stimulus
  • "irritate the glands of a leaf"
• To provoke impatience, anger, or displeasure in.
• To cause or induce displeasure or irritation.
• To induce pain in (all or part of a body or organism).
• To render null and void.

Examples

• His strategic blocking plays were designed to IRRITATE opponents into making rash decisions.

Synonyms

annoy, bother, chafe, devil, get at, get to, gravel, nark, nettle, rag, rile, vex, Idioms:, abrade, ache, afflict, aggravate, aggrieve, agonize, anguish, annul, antagonize, bedevil, boil someone's piss, botherate, bug, burn up, chap someone's hide, cheese off, dere, disgruntle, exasperate, excruciate, 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, hack off, harsh one's mellow, hassle, hurt, invalidate, irk, irritate, jazz, molest, mommick, nullify, pang, pee off, peeve, persecute, pine, pique, piss off, provoke, put someone's back up, rack, raise someone's hackles, rankle, rile up, roil, rub someone the wrong way, rub up the wrong way, ruffle, ruffle someone's feathers, sting, storm, tee off, test someone's patience, throe, tick off, torment, torque off, torture, trouble, try one's patience, wind up, wring

Antonyms

soothe, placate, please

Related Words

disturb, exasperate, irritant, irritation, irritative, irritatory, peeve