Frustrating means blocking what you want and annoying you by it. A frustrating delay, deeply frustrating, how frustrating.
The blocking is essential: a thing is frustrating when it stops you doing something, not merely when it is unpleasant. That is why waiting is frustrating and pain is not, and why the word is so exactly right about queues and forms.
1adjectivefrustratingBlocking what you want and annoying you by it.
“It's frustrating when the internet keeps cutting out during a video call.”
frustrating is a quality.
Latin
frūstrātus
Middle English
frustraten — to prevent, disappoint, render useless
English
frustrate
English, today
frustrating
Built from
From frustrate + -ing. frustrate comes from Middle English frustraten (“to prevent, disappoint, render useless”), from Latin frūstrātus, perfect passive participle of frūstrō (“to deceive”), see -ate. Compare French frustrer.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA