Aggravate vs Hostile - What's the difference?
aggravate | hostile |
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:
Belonging or appropriate to an enemy; showing the disposition of an enemy; showing ill will and malevolence, or a desire to thwart and injure; occupied by an enemy or enemies; inimical; unfriendly
As a verb aggravate
is to make worse, or more severe; to render less tolerable or less excusable; to make more offensive; to enhance; to intensify.As an adjective hostile is
belonging or appropriate to an enemy; showing the disposition of an enemy; showing ill will and malevolence, or a desire to thwart and injure; occupied by an enemy or enemies; inimical; unfriendly.As a noun hostile is
(chiefly|in the plural) an enemy.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.
Usage notes
* Although the meaning "to exasperate, to annoy" has been in continuous usage since the 16th century, a large number of usage mavens have contested it since the 1870s. Opinions have swayed from this proscription since 1965, but it still garners disapproval in Garner's Modern American Usage (2009), at least for formal writing.Synonyms
* heighten, intensify, increase, magnify, exaggerate, provoke, irritate, exasperate * See alsoExternal links
* * ----hostile
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- a hostile force
- hostile intentions
- a hostile country
- hostile to a sudden change