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Cause vs Aggravate - What's the difference?

cause | aggravate | Related terms |

Cause is a related term of aggravate.


As verbs the difference between cause and aggravate

is that cause is while aggravate is to make worse, or more severe; to render less tolerable or less excusable; to make more offensive; to enhance; to intensify.

cause

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • The source of, or reason for, an event or action; that which produces or effects a result.
  • Her wedding will be cause for celebration.
    They identified a burst pipe as the cause of the flooding.
  • * , chapter=5
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […], the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts.}}
  • A goal, aim or principle, especially one which transcends purely selfish ends.
  • * Shakespeare
  • God befriend us, as our cause is just.
  • * Burke
  • The part they take against me is from zeal to the cause .
  • (obsolete) Sake; interest; advantage.
  • * Bible, 2 Corinthians vii. 12
  • I did it not for his cause .
  • (obsolete) Any subject of discussion or debate; a matter; an affair.
  • * Shakespeare
  • What counsel give you in this weighty cause ?
  • (legal) A suit or action in court; any legal process by which a party endeavors to obtain his claim, or what he regards as his right; case; ground of action.
  • Synonyms

    * (source or reason) reason, source

    Derived terms

    * because * causal * causality * causative * cause celebre * efficient cause * final cause * for cause (law) * formal cause * material cause

    See also

    * effect

    Verb

    (caus)
  • To set off an event or action.
  • *
  • Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=A better waterworks, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
  • , page=5 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic
  • To actively produce as a result, by means of force or authority.
  • * Bible, (w) vii.4
  • I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days.
  • * , chapter=13
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heartedness caused more harm than good.}}
  • To assign or show cause; to give a reason; to make excuse.
  • (Spenser)

    Derived terms

    * causation

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * English control verbs ----

    aggravate

    English

    Verb

    (aggravat)
  • To make worse, or more severe; to render less tolerable or less excusable; to make more offensive; to enhance; to intensify.
  • 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.
  • To give coloring to in description; to exaggerate; as, to aggravate circumstances. — .
  • To exasperate; to provoke, to irritate.
  • * 1748 , (Samuel Richardson), Clarissa :
  • If both were to aggravate her parents, as my brother and sister do mine.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1905, author=
  • , title= , chapter=1 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. […]”}}
  • * 1977 , (Alistair Horne), A Savage War of Peace , New York Review Books 2006, p. 85:
  • 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 also