Agitate vs Aggravate - What's the difference?
agitate | aggravate |
To move with a violent, irregular action; as, the wind agitates the sea; to agitate water in a vessel.
(rare) To move or actuate.
:(Thomson)
To stir up; to disturb or excite; to perturb; as, he was greatly agitated.
To discuss with great earnestness; to debate; as, a controversy hotly agitated.
:(Boyle)
To revolve in the mind, or view in all its aspects; to contrive busily; to devise; to plot; as, politicians agitate desperate designs.
To make worse, or more severe; to render less tolerable or less excusable; to make more offensive; to enhance; to intensify.
To give coloring to in description; to exaggerate; as, to aggravate circumstances. — .
To exasperate; to provoke, to irritate.
* 1748 , (Samuel Richardson), Clarissa :
* {{quote-book, year=1905, author=
, title=
, chapter=1 * 1977 , (Alistair Horne), A Savage War of Peace , New York Review Books 2006, p. 85:
As verbs the difference between aggravate and agitate
is that aggravate is to make worse, or more severe; to render less tolerable or less excusable; to make more offensive; to enhance; to intensify while agitate is to move with a violent, irregular action; as, the wind agitates the sea; to agitate water in a vessel.agitate
English
(Webster 1913)Verb
(agitat)- ``Winds . . . agitate the air.'' --Cowper.
- The mind of man is agitated by various passions. --Johnson.
Synonyms
* move, shake, excite, rouse, disturb, distract, revolve, discuss, debate, canvassExternal links
* * * ----aggravate
English
Verb
(aggravat)- To aggravate my woes. —
- To aggravate the horrors of the scene. —.
- The defense made by the prisoner's counsel did rather aggravate than extenuate his crime. —Addison.
- If both were to aggravate her parents, as my brother and sister do mine.
citation, passage=“It is a pity,” he retorted with aggravating meekness, “that they do not use a little common sense. The case resembles that of Columbus' egg, and is every bit as simple. […]”}}
- Ben Bella was aggravated by having to express himself in French because the Egyptians were unable to understand his Arabic.