Aggravate vs Strengthen - What's the difference?
aggravate | strengthen |
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:
(lb) To make strong or stronger; to add strength to; to increase the strength of; to fortify; to reinforce.
:
*(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
*:Let noble Warwick, Cobham, and the rest,/ With powerful policy strengthen themselves.
*1851 , Anonymous,
*:A little hardship, and a little struggling with the rougher elements of life, will perchance but strengthen and increase his courage, and prepare him for the conflicts and struggles of after years.
(lb) To animate; to give moral strength to; to encourage; to fix in resolution; to hearten.
*(Bible), (w) iii. 28
*:Charge Joshua, and encourage him, and strengthen him.
*
*:"A fine man, that Dunwody, yonder," commented the young captain, as they parted, and as he turned to his prisoner. "We'll see him on in Washington some day. He is strengthening his forces now against Mr. Benton out there.."
(lb) To augment; to improve; to intensify.
(lb) To grow strong or stronger.
As verbs the difference between aggravate and strengthen
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 strengthen is to make strong or stronger; to add strength to; to increase the strength of; to fortify; to reinforce.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
* * ----strengthen
English
Verb
(en verb)Arthur Hamilton, and His Dog
