vexation
noun
Simple meaning
The psychological state of being irritated or annoyed.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vehksayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
vɛkˈseɪʃən
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 psychological state of being irritated or annoyed
uncountable
The action of vexing, annoying, or irritating someone or something; (countable) an instance of this.
Something or someone that causes anxiety; a source of unhappiness
The act of troubling or annoying someone
uncountable
The state of being mentally distressed or troubled.
countable
A source of mental distress or trouble; an affliction, a woe; also, a source of annoyance or irritation; an annoyance, an irritant.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The psychological state of being irritated or annoyed
Used this way, vexation is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It sounds natural in ordinary conversation and in expressive writing alike.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: psychological state of being irritated or annoyed
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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.