AGGRAVATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does aggravation mean? 

• AGGRAVATION (noun)
  The noun AGGRAVATION has 3 senses:

1. an exasperated feeling of annoyance

2. unfriendly behavior that causes anger or resentment

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

  Familiarity information: AGGRAVATION used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AGGRAVATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An exasperated feeling of annoyance

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

aggravation; exasperation

Hypernyms ("aggravation" is a kind of...):

annoyance; chafe; vexation (anger produced by some annoying irritation)

Derivation:

aggravate (exasperate or irritate)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Unfriendly behavior that causes anger or resentment

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

aggravation; irritation; provocation

Hypernyms ("aggravation" is a kind of...):

aggression (deliberately unfriendly behavior)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "aggravation"):

aggro ((informal British usage) aggravation or aggression)

last straw (the final irritation that stretches your patience beyond the limit)

taunt; taunting; twit (aggravation by deriding or mocking or criticizing)

Derivation:

aggravate (exasperate or irritate)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Action that makes a problem or a disease (or its symptoms) worse

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

aggravation; exacerbation

Context example:

the aggravation of her condition resulted from lack of care

Hypernyms ("aggravation" is a kind of...):

intensification (action that makes something stronger or more extreme)

Derivation:

aggravate (make worse)

 Context examples 

She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The necessity of concealing from her mother and Marianne, what had been entrusted in confidence to herself, though it obliged her to unceasing exertion, was no aggravation of Elinor's distress.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Now it seems nothing; yet it is an heavy aggravation.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Last month, Mars’ little brother Mercury was retrograde, messing things up like Wrecker Ralph, but this month, you will have an open road, without any of the frustrating delays and aggravations you experienced in November.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Scientists discovered that the aggravation of the disease by LRV relies on the activation of various molecules, particularly the toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) inside the macrophages - white blood cells that become infected with Leishmania.

(Study uncovers cause of aggressive leishmaniasis strain, SciDev.Net)

Bolgolam, the admiral, could not preserve his temper, but, rising up in fury, said, he wondered how the secretary durst presume to give his opinion for preserving the life of a traitor; that the services you had performed were, by all true reasons of state, the great aggravation of your crimes; that you, who were able to extinguish the fire by discharge of urine in her majesty’s apartment (which he mentioned with horror), might, at another time, raise an inundation by the same means, to drown the whole palace; and the same strength which enabled you to bring over the enemy’s fleet, might serve, upon the first discontent, to carry it back; that he had good reasons to think you were a Big-endian in your heart; and, as treason begins in the heart, before it appears in overt-acts, so he accused you as a traitor on that account, and therefore insisted you should be put to death.

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

It was to be decided whether the result of my curiosity and lawless devices would cause the death of two of my fellow beings: one a smiling babe full of innocence and joy, the other far more dreadfully murdered, with every aggravation of infamy that could make the murder memorable in horror.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The kindnesses you have secretly done for his advancement, and then disclosed to me, for my surprise and pleasure, have been, you will believe, but aggravations of the unhappiness and burden of my secret.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

This was a cruel aggravation of actually straitened means.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Such a look of reproach at Edmund from his father she could never have expected to witness; and to feel that it was in any degree deserved was an aggravation indeed.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)