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AGGRAVATION
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Action that makes a problem or a disease (or its symptoms) worse
Example:
the aggravation of her condition resulted from lack of care
Synonyms:
aggravation; exacerbation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("aggravation" is a kind of...):
intensification (action that makes something stronger or more extreme)
Derivation:
aggravate (make worse)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Unfriendly behavior that causes anger or resentment
Synonyms:
aggravation; irritation; provocation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
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:
An exasperated feeling of annoyance
Synonyms:
aggravation; exasperation
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("aggravation" is a kind of...):
annoyance; chafe; vexation (anger produced by some annoying irritation)
Derivation:
aggravate (exasperate or irritate)
Context examples:
We had a merry game, not made the less merry by the Doctor's mistakes, of which he committed an innumerable quantity, in spite of the watchfulness of the butterflies, and to their great aggravation.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
I remember, when I was once interceding with the emperor for a criminal who had wronged his master of a great sum of money, which he had received by order and ran away with; and happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was only a breach of trust, the emperor thought it monstrous in me to offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly I had little to say in return, farther than the common answer, that different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was heartily ashamed.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Lady Russell was extremely sorry that such a measure should have been resorted to at all, wondered, grieved, and feared; and the affront it contained to Anne, in Mrs Clay's being of so much use, while Anne could be of none, was a very sore aggravation.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
She feared she had been doing wrong: saying too much, overacting the caution which she had been fancying necessary; in guarding against one evil, laying herself open to another; and to have Miss Crawford's liveliness repeated to her at such a moment, and on such a subject, was a bitter aggravation.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
