Exasperate

 WORD OF THE DAY

exasperate / verb / ig-ZASS-puh-rayt

Definition
1a: to cause irritation or annoyance to
1b: to excite the anger of
1c: enrage
2a (obsolete): to make more grievous
2b: aggravate
3a: irritated or annoyed especially to the point of injudicious action
3b: exasperated
4: roughened with irregular prickles or elevations

Examples
"His suggestions sometimes exasperate the garden designers, who have their own vision of where things should be."
— Jeanette Marantos, The Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 2021

Voting restrictions, like those outlined in Senate Bill 90, can exasperate health disparities.
— Laken Brooks, Forbes, 8 Nov. 2021

Did You Know?
Exasperate hangs with a rough crowd. It derives from exasperatus, the past participle of the Latin verb exasperare, which in turn was formed by combining ex- with asper, meaning "rough."
Another descendant of asper in English is asperity, which can refer to the roughness of a surface or the roughness of someone's temper.
Another relative, albeit a distant one, is the English word spurn, meaning "to reject."
Lest you wish to exasperate your readers, you should take care not to confuse exasperate with the similar-sounding exacerbate, another Latin-derived verb that means "to make worse," as in "Their refusal to ask for help only exacerbated the problem."