Galling means deeply annoying and humiliating. Particularly galling, a galling defeat, galling to admit.
The humiliation is what separates it from merely annoying — what is galling stings your pride, which is why losing to somebody you dislike is the standard example. The gall in it is the sore a saddle rubs on a horse, so galling is chafing until it hurts. Note gall, meaning bitterness.
1adjectivegallingDeeply annoying and humiliating.
“It was galling to lose the final to a team we had beaten easily all season.”
synonyms: vexing, humiliating
galling is a quality of irritation.
Gall plus -ing, from the sore rubbed by a saddle. The verb means to chafe, and the sense of irritation followed.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰelh₃-
Proto-Germanic
*gallǭ
Proto-West Germanic
*gallā
Old English
ġealla
Middle English
galle
English
gall
English, today
galling
From gall + ing. The adjective follows from the verb. gall comes from Middle English galle, from Old English ġealla, galla, from Proto-West Germanic gallā, from Proto-Germanic gallǭ. The figurative senses (e.g., impudence, brazenness, chutzpah) are related to the literal sense (i.e., bile) via the lasting linguocultural#Adjective effects of humorism#Noun, which governed Western medicine for many centuries before the advent of scientific medicine. Related to Dutch gal, German Galle, Swedish galle, galla, Ancient Greek χολή. Also remotely related with yellow and gold.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA