Other forms: exasperated, exasperating, exasperates
To exasperate is to irritate somebody past all patience. Exasperate his teachers, exasperated by the delay, an exasperating habit.
The past all patience is the whole word — exasperating things are usually small and repeated rather than large. The Latin means to roughen thoroughly, from asper, rough, which is exactly the image: patience worn rough.
1verbexasperateTo irritate somebody past all patience.
“The printer jammed for the tenth time that morning, which exasperated everyone in the office.”
exasperate is an irritating.
Latin exasperare means to roughen thoroughly — ex plus asperare, from asper, rough. Asperity is the same root.
Latin
exasperātus
English, today
exasperate
Built from
1534; Latin exasperātus, the perfect passive participle of Latin exasperō (see -ate and -ate), from ex (“out of; thoroughly”) + asperō (“to make rough”), from asper (“rough”). Participial usage of the adjective up until Early Modern English.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA