antagonize

an·tag·o·nize | \ an-ˈta-gə-ˌnīz

antagonized; antagonizing

Definition of antagonize

1 : to incur or provoke the hostility of His criticism antagonized his friends.

2 : to act in opposition to : counteract The drug is antagonized by methylxanthines, such as caffeine and theophylline … — Scientific American Medicine

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Examples of antagonize in a Sentence

He didn't mean to antagonize you. Her comments antagonized many people.

Recent Examples on the Web And their mayors have been almost structurally predisposed to antagonize rural voters. — Emily Badger, New York Times, "230 Years and Zero Presidents: Why Mayors Haven’t Jumped Straight to the White House," 18 Nov. 2019 Tom Brady got in the Halloween spirit in order to playfully antagonize his former competitor Peyton Manning. — Benjamin Vanhoose, PEOPLE.com, "Tom Brady Just Trolled Peyton Manning with a Halloween Skeleton Decoration: 'Getting Old'," 1 Nov. 2019 But the proposal also threatens to antagonize unions and voters in areas that depend on oil and gas for jobs. — Nicholas Riccardi, The Denver Post, "Democrats step on shaky political ground with fracking bans," 10 Sep. 2019 Part of the Dorrs’ playbook in other states has been to antagonize existing leading Second Amendment groups for being too compromising. — Andrew J. Tobias, cleveland.com, "How one Ohio gun-rights group aims to upend the public debate by scaring Republicans," 27 Aug. 2019 Internal acrimony Never the best of friends, Democratic Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub and Republican Vice Chairwoman Caroline Hunter — two of the three remaining FEC commissioners — are antagonizing one another as much as ever. — NBC News, "Halloween's over. The Federal Election Commission? Still a zombie.," 1 Nov. 2019 The video showed Robinson antagonizing Fouse and telling him to hit her, according to DeNoon’s testimony, but Fouse declined to do so. — Ashley Remkus | Aremkus@al.com, al, "Huntsville woman fatally shot man during car purchase dispute, investigator testifies," 21 Aug. 2019 Over the last three years, Diaz has enjoyed his time on the sidelines as somewhat of an antihero, smoking mounds of marijuana and antagonizing UFC boss Dana White. — Manouk Akopyan, Los Angeles Times, "Daniel Cormier vs. Stipe Miocic highlights UFC 241 from Anaheim," 16 Aug. 2019 After all, this is a player who went AWOL ahead of his team’s season finale last December, with that team still in the playoff hunt, then grew a blonde mustache and publicly antagonized the organization on social media to try to force a trade. — Albert Breer, SI.com, "Antonio Brown’s Helmet Drama Is Exactly What Jon Gruden and the Raiders Bargained For," 12 Aug. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'antagonize.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Dictionary Entries near antagonize

antagonistic

antagonistic cooperation

antagonistic symbiosis

Statistics for antagonize

Last Updated

8 Dec 2019

Cite this Entry

“Antagonize.” The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antagonize. Accessed 10 December 2019.

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More Definitions for antagonize

antagonize

verb