aggravation
noun
Simple meaning
Used of evils, natural or moral.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
agruhvayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
æɡɹəˈveɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
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.
An extrinsic circumstance or accident which increases the guilt of a crime or the misery of a calamity.
informal
Provocation, irritation, annoyance.
Exaggerated representation.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, aggravation is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in ethics or values and personal or emotional discussion contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Ethics/values
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use aggravation
- “The aggravation of her condition resulted from lack of care.”noun
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More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: aggravating or or making worse
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.