AGGRAVATE

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does aggravate mean? 

• AGGRAVATE (verb)
  The verb AGGRAVATE has 2 senses:

1. make worse

2. exasperate or irritate

  Familiarity information: AGGRAVATE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AGGRAVATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they aggravate    ... he / she / it aggravates   
Past simple: aggravated   
Past participle: aggravated   
-ing form: aggravating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make worse

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

aggravate; exacerbate; exasperate; worsen

Context example:

This drug aggravates the pain

Hypernyms (to "aggravate" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "aggravate"):

irritate (excite to an abnormal condition, or chafe or inflame)

inflame (cause inflammation in)

cheapen; degrade (lower the grade of something; reduce its worth)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s somebody
Something ----s something

Derivation:

aggravation (action that makes a problem or a disease (or its symptoms) worse)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Exasperate or irritate

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

aggravate; exacerbate; exasperate

Hypernyms (to "aggravate" is one way to...):

anger (make angry)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

aggravation (unfriendly behavior that causes anger or resentment)

aggravation (an exasperated feeling of annoyance)

aggravator (an unpleasant person who is annoying or exasperating)

 Context examples 

The water crisis currently facing the Central-West could be aggravated by the loss in the cerrado coverage, and the emission of greenhouse gases would reach 8.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

(Species native to Brazil savanna likely to face extinction, Agência Brasil)

That cruel man with the wooden leg aggravated my sufferings.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

For example, tobacco smoke is an aggravating factor for asthma.

(Aggravating factor, NCI Dictionary)

Death resulting from previously existing disease or a disease developing during pregnancy which was not associated with gestation, but which was aggravated by the unique physiologic changes of pregnancy.

(Indirect Maternal Death, NCI Thesaurus)

It may be aggravated by exposure to cold and is classified as idiopathic or secondary.

(Livedo Reticularis, NCI Thesaurus)

The two professors, their tempers aggravated no doubt by their injuries, had fallen out as to whether our assailants were of the genus pterodactylus or dimorphodon, and high words had ensued.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The bread burned black; for the salad dressing so aggravated her that she could not make it fit to eat.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of the end of the pregnancy, irrespective of the duration or anatomic site of the pregnancy, due to any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management, but not from accidental or incidental causes.

(Maternal Mortality, NCI Thesaurus)

It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes’s iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exacting kind, aggravated, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He said, “he had been very seriously considering my whole story, as far as it related both to myself and my country; that he looked upon us as a sort of animals, to whose share, by what accident he could not conjecture, some small pittance of reason had fallen, whereof we made no other use, than by its assistance, to aggravate our natural corruptions, and to acquire new ones, which nature had not given us; that we disarmed ourselves of the few abilities she had bestowed; had been very successful in multiplying our original wants, and seemed to spend our whole lives in vain endeavours to supply them by our own inventions; that, as to myself, it was manifest I had neither the strength nor agility of a common Yahoo; that I walked infirmly on my hinder feet; had found out a contrivance to make my claws of no use or defence, and to remove the hair from my chin, which was intended as a shelter from the sun and the weather: lastly, that I could neither run with speed, nor climb trees like my brethren,” as he called them, “the Yahoos in his country.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)