aggravation

aggravation

English

Etymology

From Middle French aggravation.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

Noun

aggravation (countable and uncountable, plural aggravations)

1. The act of aggravating, or making worse; used of evils, natural or moral; the act of increasing in severity or heinousness; something additional to a crime or wrong and enhancing its guilt or injurious consequences.

   Synonym: exacerbation

   • 1826, [Mary Shelley], chapter 10, in The Last Man. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Henry Colburn, […], OCLC 230675575:

     Adrian, whose health had always been weak, now suffered considerable aggravation of suffering from the effects of his wound.

2. Exaggerated representation.
3. An extrinsic circumstance or accident which increases the guilt of a crime or the misery of a calamity.
4. (informal) Provocation, irritation, annoyance.
   • 1968, Mac Davis & Billy Strange (lyrics and music), “A Little Less Conversation”, performed by Elvis Presley:

     A little less conversation, a little more action please / All this aggravation ain't satisfactioning me

Derived terms

• reaggravation

Related terms

• aggravate

Translations

act of aggravating

Bulgarian: влошаване (bg) (vlošavane), утежняване (utežnjavane) Dutch: verergering (nl) Finnish: ärsyttäminen (fi), suututtaminen (fi) German: Erschwerung, Verärgerung, Zuspitzung (de), med. Verschlechterung, erschwerender Umstand Portuguese: agravamento (pt) m, agravação (pt) f, agravo (pt) m Spanish: agravio (es) m

exaggerated representation

extrinsic circumstance or accident which increases the guilt of a crime or the misery of a calamity

Finnish: raskauttava asianhaara French: circonstances aggravantes (fr) f pl Hungarian: súlyosbító körülmény Portuguese: agravante (pt) m Spanish: agravante (es) m

Further reading

• “aggravation”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• aggravation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• aggravation in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for aggravation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)

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French

Pronunciation

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

aggravation f (plural aggravations)

1. aggravation

Further reading

• “aggravation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.