Word of the Day

: December 21, 2021

exasperate

verb ig-ZASS-puh-rayt

What It Means

Exasperate means "to cause irritation or annoyance to someone" or "to excite the anger of someone."

// The flight delays began to exasperate people in the airport.

See the entry >

exasperate in Context

"His suggestions sometimes exasperate the garden designers, who have their own vision of where things should be." — Jeanette Marantos, The Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 2021

Did You Know?

Exasperate comes from Latin exasperare, whose base, asper, means "rough." A relative of asper is asperity, which can refer to the roughness of a surface or the roughness of someone's temper. Another is spurn, meaning "to reject."