Exasperate vs Exacerbate - What's the difference?
exasperate | exacerbate |
To frustrate, vex, provoke, or annoy; to make angry.
* , Macbeth , act 3, sc. 6:
* 1851 , , Moby Dick , ch. 3:
* 1853 , , Bleak House , ch. 11:
* 1987 , "
* 2007 , "
(obsolete) Exasperated; embittered.
* Elizabeth Browning
To make worse (pain, anger, etc.); aggravate.
* 2013 , Louise Taylor, English talent gets left behind as Premier League keeps importing'' (in ''The Guardian , 20 August 2013)[http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/aug/19/english-talent-premier-league-importing]
As verbs the difference between exasperate and exacerbate
is that exasperate is to frustrate, vex, provoke, or annoy; to make angry while exacerbate is to make worse (pain, anger, etc.); aggravate.As an adjective exasperate
is exasperated; embittered.exasperate
English
Verb
(exasperat)- this report
- Hath so exasperate the king that he
- Prepares for some attempt of war.
- The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.
- Beadle goes into various shops and parlours, examining the inhabitants; always shutting the door first, and by exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy, exasperating the public.
Woman of the Year: Corazon Aquino," Time , 5 Jan:
- [S]he exasperates her security men by acting as if she were protected by some invisible shield.
Loyal Mail," Times Online (UK), 4 June (retrieved 7 Oct 2010):
- News that Adam Crozier, Royal Mail chief executive, is set to receive a bumper bonus will exasperate postal workers.
Adjective
(en adjective)- (Shakespeare)
- Like swallows which the exasperate dying year / Sets spinning.
See also
* exacerbate ----exacerbate
English
Verb
(exacerbat)- The proposed shutdown would exacerbate unemployment problems.
- The reasons for this growing disconnect are myriad and complex but the situation is exacerbated by the reality that those English players who do smash through our game's "glass ceiling" command radically inflated transfer fees.
