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Aggravating   /ˈægrəvˌeɪtɪŋ/   Listen
Aggravating

adjective
1.
Making worse.  Synonyms: exacerbating, exasperating.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Aggravating" Quotes from Famous Books



... A more aggravating annoyance, however, brings loss to the owners of the herds. Despite the stringent law, there is always a certain number of desperate men who take perilous chances in stealing cattle and running them off beyond ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis

... up with the view of saving the life of the Sire de Retz; for the crime of homicide was presented without aggravating circumstances, in such a manner that it could be denied or shelved, whilst the crimes of felony and rebellion against the Duke of Brittany ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... them. Whenever an abrupt turn showed forward, Fitzgerald put his hand in his pocket. From whichever way it came, he, at least, was not going to be found unprepared. Sometimes, when he heard M. Ferraud's laughter drift back from the admiral's carriage, he longed to throttle the aggravating little man. Yet, his admiration of him was genuine. What a chap to have wandered round with, in the old days! He began to realize what Frenchmen must have been a hundred years gone. And the strongest point in his ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... she's got something locked up somewhere in that house as'd elucidate the whole of this aggravating mystery, if only we could get ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... Kit Carson and I started after the burro. He had run off, up the mountain again, and we couldn't catch him. He was too nervous. We'd get close to him, and with a snort and a toss of his ears he would jump away and fool us. That was very aggravating. ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin

... every minute ever since I called, and you was too sick to see me," said Mrs. Groody, "but I've been so busy I couldn't get away. It takes an awful lot of work to get such a big house to rights, and the women cleanin', and the servants are so aggravating that I am just run off my legs lookin' after them. I don't see why people can't do what they're told, when ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... not discredit your own flesh and blood for a stranger," cried Mrs. Corfield crossly; and the mute man with an aggravating smile suddenly seemed to repent of his unusual loquacity, and gradually subsided into himself and his calculations, from which he was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... sent a man privately to the consuls, falsely to accuse the Volscians of intending to fall upon the Romans during the games, and to set the city on fire. This public affront aroused their hostility to the Romans; and Tullus, perceiving it, took advantage of it, aggravating the fact, and working on their indignation, till he persuaded them, at last, to despatch ambassadors to Rome, requiring the Romans to restore that part of their country and those towns which they had taken from ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... was a little aggravating. Spring always thrills me to the tips of my fingers; I had put on my very nicest clothes; we were eating the very last word in lunches, and there was a glorious atmosphere of holiday in the air; but it was all ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various

... lack of good water. Our trouble was with the horses and mules, for we had no grain for them, and if the snow got very deep they would not be able to paw down to the bunch grass. The snow soon began again, and all night it fell with aggravating facility. Sunday morning opened as leaden and dark as a February day could be, and there was no cessation of the showers of whiteness that were rapidly building up on the ground a formidable barrier to our operations. As I was wearing rather low brogans, having discarded ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... ever wish to marry again; I think one husband in one's life is enough in all conscience';—here she threw a fierce glance at the amiable Mr. Phipps, who was innocently delighting himself with the facetiae in the 'Rotherby Guardian,' and thinking the editor must be a droll fellow—'but it's aggravating to be tied up in that way. Why, they say Mrs. Dempster will have as good as six hundred a-year at least. A fine thing for her, that was a poor girl without a farthing to her fortune. It's well if she doesn't make ducks and drakes ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... his hobbles and runs away, thus aggravating the spirits of, and causing infinite annoyance to, the man. Frequently the man, out of revenge for such or similar freaks, larrups and pains and worries the horse. But these little asperities are the occasional landmarks that give point and piquancy to the even tenor of their loving ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... kept firm hold of Andrea. He had drawn him into a window and was discoursing to him on certain little Urbanese 'coppette amatorie' which he had picked up at the Cavaliere Davila's sale, and the rasping voice with its aggravating interrogative inflections, the gestures with which he indicated the dimensions of the cups, and his glance—now dull and fishy, now keen as steel under the great prominent brow—in short, the whole man was so unendurably obnoxious to Andrea that he clenched his ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... how alarming it was, and at the same time how aggravating. The large-size dragons were terrible certainly, but when once you had found out that the dragons always went to bed early because they were afraid of the chill night air, you had only to stay indoors all ...
— The Book of Dragons • Edith Nesbit

... not go well. To properly cast a trout-fly, one's thoughts must be upon the art. A preoccupied mind and wandering attention tends to a tangled line, a snarled leader, and all sorts of aggravating complications. Sibyl—usually so skillful at this most delicate of sports—was as inaccurate and awkward, this day, as the merest tyro. The many pools and falls and swirling eddies of Clear Creek held for her, now, memories more attractive, by ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright

... not have taken offence just now at any remark of Grandmamma's; but he could not help speaking to her with a sort of respectful indulgence, as much as to say, "I know she can't help it, poor old lady," which Grandmamma found exceedingly aggravating. "Beg pardon. But it's Mrs. Twiss. If she could see you for a ...
— "Us" - An Old Fashioned Story • Mary Louisa S. Molesworth

... preoccupation of his time with every kind of business had saved him from that acutest lure that idleness brings. Nevertheless, it may confidently be said that, had temptation been of the sharpest and the most aggravating, he would never have, even for a moment, dwelt upon the possibility of yielding to it. To him this was the "sin ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... the same defensive policy as he had applied to the first; and apparently the citizens had now come to acquiesce in it, if not willingly, at least with a full conviction of its necessity. But a new visitation had now occurred, diverting their attention from the invader, though enormously aggravating their sufferings. A few days after Archidamus entered Attica, a pestilence or epidemic sickness broke out unexpectedly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... disease is produced by it, attended by symptoms, and giving rise to appearances after death, peculiar to the form of slow starvation from which the infant has perished. I will add, because it is not generally known, one fresh illustration of the influence of artificial feeding in aggravating the mortality of infants. In Berlin the certificates of death of all infants under the age of one year, are required to state whether the little one had been brought up at the breast, or on some kind or other of artificial food. Of ten thousand children dying under ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... think it would!" said Enid laughing. "Much too nice for us. They choose the driest books possible for schools. Patty, why don't you grumble too? It's quite aggravating to see you ...
— The Nicest Girl in the School - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... interior could be seen the outline of dark, well-rounded forms looming between the heel-posts of the stalls which lined the side walls. An occasional impatient stamp from the heavily-shod hoofs told of the capacity for annoyance of the ubiquitous fly or aggravating mosquito, whilst the steady grinding sound which pervaded the atmosphere within, and the occasional "gush" of distended nostrils testified to healthy appetites, and noses buried in mangers well ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... a sunny and contented assertion about "sister Air," that must have proved singularly aggravating to the others, who, however, make no sign as to the final results, the implication being, that she is after all the one absolutely indispensable agent. But to end nowhere, each side fully convinced in its own mind that the point had been carried in its own favor, was so eminently in the spirit ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... will be found by any one who puts the matter to the test that in no case is there any unfairness in taking these brief extracts out of their context. The context is almost always an aggravating ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various

... compel Mrs. Chater to give Mary place at the evening meal. There was the aggravating fact that mothers'-helps, just as if they were ordinary people, must be fed; there was also the contingency that servants most strongly objected to serving a special meal—even "on a tray"—to one who was not of the family, yet who had airs above ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... the chain was fastened to the gun-carriage; the other end thrashed wildly around, aggravating the danger with every bound of the cannon. The screw held it as in a clenched hand, and this chain, multiplying the strokes of the battering-ram by those of the thong, made a terrible whirlwind around the gun,—a lash ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various

... the very reverse took place. The introduction of military conscription of a most aggravating kind and the unspeakable cruelties attending its practical execution were followed, in the case of the Jews, by an unprecedented recrudescence of legislative discrimination and a monstrous increase of their disabilities. The Jews were lashed with a double knout, a military and a civil. ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow

... the Flemish Raphael, and the rest of the company went back to their lodgings; where the young gentleman, taking the advantage of being alone with the physician, recapitulated all the affronts he had sustained from the painter's petulance, aggravating every circumstance of the disgrace, and advising him, in the capacity of a friend, to take care of his honour, which could not fail to suffer in the opinion of the world, if he allowed himself to be insulted with impunity, by one so much his ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... nothing!" Nattie said, in answer to the latter's significant laugh, when the customer had retired. "Some very ludicrous incidents occur almost daily, I assure you. Truly, the ignorance of people in regard to telegraphy is surprising; aggravating too, sometimes. Just imagine a person thinking a telegraph office is managed on the same principle as those stores where they at first charge double the value of the goods, for the sake of giving ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer

... two more days at Orcheres, Tuesday and Wednesday, thus losing time and aggravating the situation. The general, the man with the sabre, whom Silvere had pointed out to Miette on the Plassans road, vacillated and hesitated under the terrible responsibility that weighed upon him. On Thursday he came to the conclusion that the position of ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... eyes of Washington to be fixed anxiously on the uncertain situation. It was solely a psychological and mental condition, but of a character that seemed premonitory of an outbreak on Germany's part. Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, in a cryptic remark to the Reichstag on September 28, 1916, succeeded in aggravating American concern, though he may not have so intended. "A German statesman," he said, "who would hesitate to use against Britain every available instrument of battle that would really shorten this war ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... carried beyond sea as slaves, that they should not be emancipated for ten years, and that the place of their banishment should be some West Indian island. This last article was studiously framed for the purpose of aggravating the misery of the exiles. In New England or New Jersey they would have found a population kindly disposed to them and a climate not unfavourable to their health and vigour. It was therefore determined that they should be sent to colonies where a Puritan could hope to inspire ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... although there are certain rules by which you may obtain the greatest degree of improvement, you cannot rigidly adhere to them. There are numberless instances when the propensity or inclination of the child may appear to you to be aggravating and annoying; nevertheless, you must not let your irritability interfere with the development of that trait preeminent to the ...
— Tyranny of God • Joseph Lewis

... mother, who had fallen at his feet, crying out, "O, my mother, thou hast saved Rome, but lost thy son!" He accordingly gave orders to draw off the army, pretending to the officers that the city was too strong to be taken. 26. Tullus, who had long envied Coriola'nus, was not remiss in aggravating the lenity of his conduct to his countrymen. Upon their return, Coriola'nus is said to have been slain by an insurrection of the people, and honourably buried, after a late ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith

... sure I'll tell him— With all the aggravating circumstances [Alone. I can, to make him swell at that command. The tyrant first suspected me; Then with a sudden gust he whirled about, And trusted me too far:—Madness of power! Now, by his own consent, I ruin him. For, should some feeble soul, for fear or ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... aggravating? The poor girls were nearly crying with vexation. There was no appeal, however. Miss Frazer escorted them into their bedroom, and stood over them, giving directions, until each pair of stockings or pocket-handkerchief was disposed according to her ideas ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... last fortnight the barber has been in great and constant excitement—hoping that his little boy will obtain this valuable piece of preferment; persuading himself that the lad's thickness of voice, concerning which the choir-master speaks with aggravating persistence, is a matter of no real importance; fearing that the friends of another contemporary boy, who is said by the choir-master to have an exceedingly mellifluous voice, may defeat his paternal aspirations. The momentous question agitates many humble homes ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... returned Elizabeth impatiently, "Theo will be Theo to the end of her days. It is a mystery to me how good people can be so aggravating. Her brother always declares that she is ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... being appointed, Sir Charles desired Mr. Henry Killegrew, and another gentleman to apply to his Majesty to have the fine remitted, which they undertook to do; but in place of supplicating for it, they represented Sir Charles's frolic rather in an aggravating light, and not ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber

... abundance. If not, you will have to disburse a sixpence every time a partner accepts your offer of a glass of claret-cup between the dances, and half a sovereign for your bottle of indifferent "fizz" at supper-time. This latter is about the very worst of conceivable arrangements: it is an improper and aggravating tax upon the man, who, as likely as not, has not bethought him of bringing the requisite pocketful of change; while the ladies—at any rate, all the best of them—naturally hate the idea of letting stranger partners pay for them, and often decline ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... not only in bringing the animosity of these men against me but in aggravating their hostility to the company," he concluded. "I've never been a quitter. It would go sorely against the grain with me to quit now while under fire. But my own feelings or fortunes should have no weight; the company's interests alone are to be considered. I shall ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd

... man! Of course you must have your own way, and every one else must give in to you," she cried with aggravating emphasis, giving me no credit for trying ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths

... I was too much beloved in Paris to continue long in favour at Court. This was a crime that rendered me disagreeable in the eyes of a refined Italian statesman, and which was the more dangerous from the fact that I lost no opportunity of aggravating it by a natural and unaffected expense, to which my air of negligence gave a lustre, and by my great alms and bounty, which, though very often secret, had the louder echo; whereas, in truth, I had acted thus at first only in compliance ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... paper to stick to the ceiling instead of to me, when in my visitors trooped, and so surprised me that I stepped off the barrel and into a candy-bucket of paste. At the same time the paper came off the ceiling and fell over mine and Mrs. Louderer's head. It was right aggravating, I can tell you, but my visitors were Mrs. O'Shaughnessy and Mrs. Louderer, and no one could stay ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

... gone when lines are pulled up! This would seem to be an angling law of nature. At all events, it would seem to have been a very aggravating law of nature on the present occasion, for John Watt frowned and growled to himself as he put on ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... instances, knowingly committed. Besides this, you must have calculated largely on the credulity of your readers, to suppose that all of them would swallow such absurdities. As that men, who had just committed one of the most aggravating crimes ever recorded in the annals of history, in barbarously and cruelly murdering the son of the living God, should then for fear of having it recorded against them as touching the purity of their motives that they had violated the holy Sabbath of God by calling on the Governor, on the Sabbath ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates

... as is our power of judging others, it is a power we are all obliged to exercise. It is impossible to exclude the considerations of moral guilt and of palliating or aggravating circumstances from the penal code, and from the administration of justice, though it cannot be too clearly maintained that the criminal code is not coextensive with the moral code, and that many things which are profoundly immoral lie beyond its ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... kept his Hold upon Cain's cursed Race, embroil'd already in Blood and Murther; so he proceeded with his degenerate Offspring, till in a Word he brought both the holy Seed and the degenerate Race to joyn in one universal Consent of Crime, and to go on in it with such aggravating Circumstances, as that it repented the Lord that he had made Man, and he resolv'd to overwhelm them again with a general Destruction, and clear ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... asylums whose one idea of ministering to a mind diseased was to put the body into a strait waistcoat. Modern science laughs to scorn these simple "remedies" of an unscientific age, and declares that they were, in most cases, the most efficacious means of aggravating the disease they professed to cure. But in social maladies we are still in the age of the blood-letter and the strait waistcoat. The Gaol is our specific for Despair. When all else fails Society will always undertake to feed, clothe, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... these interruptions; but this time I said, "oh, dear!" before I thought. Then I wished I hadn't, and went up, with a cheerful face at any rate, to my unwelcome visitor, who proved to be one of my aggravating poor folks-a great giant of a woman, in perfect health, and with a husband to support her if he will. I told her that I could do no more for her; she answered me rudely, and kept urging her claims. I felt ruffled; why should my time be thus frittered away, I asked myself. At ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... we met with no success, although we had a very aggravating chase after some smart bulls we fell in with, to our mutual astonishment, just as we rounded a point of the outermost island. They were lazily sunning themselves close under the lee of the cliffs, which at that point were steep-to, having a depth of about twenty fathoms close alongside. A fresh breeze ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen

... full sight of the entire ship's company, Captain Claret promenaded to and fro below his lofty perch, reading him a most aggravating lecture upon his alleged misconduct. To a lad of sensibility, such treatment must have been almost as stinging as the lash itself ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... care preyed upon his mind, a care which rendered him very unhappy. One fact remained inexplicable—that of the compass. For a learned man to be baffled by such an inexplicable phenomenon was very aggravating. But Heaven was merciful, and in the end my uncle ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne

... twitching away books and balls. It often pouted. Sometimes it would bite. If it wore a fine frock, it would strut. It told lies,—"whoppers" at that. It took the biggest half of the apple. It was not, as a general thing, magnanimous, but "aggravating." It may have been fun to you who looked on, but it was death to us who were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... dreadful humiliation before he got the collection back into the chancel. It was a terrible strain on us, and his horrid unconsciousness that he was anything but perfect, and that the rest of us were anything more than so many paving stones to be walked on, was aggravating to a degree. Nothing unusual happened, however, and the service came to an end, and with it came to us all another surprise, but this time the surprise gave Wilkins a pain, and I had a front seat when the ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs

... their singing between decks, and were, of course, more noisy than usual, but forbore even under their existing temptations, to utter any insulting or aggravating expressions. At least, I heard nothing of the kind, unless our patriotic songs could be thus constructed. In the course of the evening we were ordered to desist from making any further noise. This order not being fully complied with, at about nine o'clock the gratings were removed, ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... dear. Adieu, adieu! Oh dear, oh dear, what ever shall I do? Adelma urged me to my boastful prating— She always is so very aggravating; I'd like to drop a lump of deadly pison In her next cup of "best strong-flavoured Hyson." I do declare my brain's all in a fuddle— Fo-hi, do help me out of this sad muddle! I'll sacrifice another guinea-pig, For mortals, then, I ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

... Grand d'Aussy, Fabliaux, 1829, iii. 185), the husband cuts out the tongue of his wife, to prevent her from repeating that his meadow has been clipped, whereupon she makes a clipping sign with her fingers. In Poggio's "Facetiae," the wife is doubly aggravating. For copious information with respect to the use made of this story by the romance-writers, see Liebrecht's translations of Basile's "Pentamerone," ii. 264, and of Dunlop's ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... of those unfortunate persons who seem only to have the power of aggravating at a crisis. In their way they are useful as serving to divert the mind; but they usually come in for more than ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman

... among his own people was less strenuous and fierce, that it was ordered by circumstances and the family system, that less was left to individual courage and enterprise, that things happened more often than things were done. The impersonality of Japan was as restful to him as it is aggravating ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... account of a quarrel in which he engaged with Monsieur Anatole, the enormous Walloon chasseur, who was one day found embracing Miss Flouncy, who waited on Amethyst's own maid. The very instant Miss Flouncy saw Mr. Jeames entering the Servants' Hall, where Monsieur Anatole was engaged in "aggravating" her, Miss Flouncy screamed: at the next moment the Belgian giant lay sprawling upon the carpet; and Jeames, standing over him, assumed so terrible a look, that the chasseur declined any further combat. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the detective with aggravating assurance. "The chambers in this revolver were filled from a box of fifty cartridges. There are five chambers. After the shooting the chambers were emptied and the unused shells returned to the box. ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin

... aggravating way of wanting to see a company of human men going across the parade like a great big caterpillar or a big bit of a machine ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn

... my mind," he said, one evening, with that smiling positiveness which is so aggravating: "I am very much inclined to believe that Ben ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... conduct must have been viewed at that juncture, even by men who cherished the most candid intentions; when they reflected upon the power, influence, and popularity of his accuser, the clanger of aggravating the resentment of the sovereign, already too conspicuous, and the risk of hazarding his life on the honour and integrity of witnesses, who might think their fortunes depended upon the nature of the evidence they should give. Notwithstanding those suggestions, lord George, seemingly impatient of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... understood why. It was because of the man's smile—a feeble, tenacious grimace that seemed to be offering a sardonic reproof. It could never have been mistaken for a courageous smile. The secret of its aggravating quality was this: In it Winkelberg accused himself of his uselessness, his feebleness, his poverty. It was as if he were regarding himself continually through the annoyed eyes of others and addressing himself with the words of others: "You, Winkelberg, get out of here. You're a nuisance. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... tiptoed on the banquette we could catch a glimpse of white sandbags looking for all the world like linen spread out to dry on the grass. But the Germans did not forget that we were near, pipsqueaks, rifle grenades, bombs and bullets came our way with aggravating persistence. It was believed that the Prussians, spiteful beggars that they are, occupied the position opposite. In these trenches the dug-outs were few and far between; ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill

... was not in the least interested in love or lovers, but she was not proof against Sary's mysterious manner. She promptly begged the loan of the precious book till noon. But there was only time for aggravating peeps in the short hour filled with recitations. So she coaxed Sary to let her take it home that night. Sary was easily persuaded. Reading was a painful process to her and she had been secretly hoping that one of the ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... she had unwittingly offended, was not aware how low she had sunk in her friend's opinion: she endeavoured, by playful wit and caresses, to atone for her fault, and to reinstate herself in her favour. But playful wit and caresses were aggravating crimes; they were proofs of obstinacy in deceit, of a callous conscience, and of a heart that was not to be touched by the marked displeasure of a benefactress. Three days and three nights did the displeasure of Mrs. Somers continue in full force, and manifest itself by a variety of signs, which ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth

... occupation, baffled hope, eclipsed knowledge, and kept up a vile inquisitorial process to goad the crushed heart, sap the heroic will, and stupefy or alienate the mental faculties; dawn ushered in the twilight of a mausoleum, noon fell dimly on paralyzed manhood, night canopied aggravating dreams. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... and for the best of all reasons; and boys are not cruel because they like to see the fight. They see three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or man—courage, endurance, and skill—in intense action. This is very different from a love of making dogs fight, and enjoying, and aggravating, and making gain by their pluck. A boy—be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would have run off with Bob and me fast enough; it is a natural, and a not wicked, interest that all boys and men ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten

... they were so much the nearer their termination; but now our prospect was dismal and dispiriting indeed, as we had the same difficulties and dangers to encounter, not only without any flattering views to lessen them, but under the aggravating circumstance of their leading to an inevitable and miserable death; for we could not possibly conceive that the fate of starving could be avoided by any human means, upon, that desolate island we were returning to. The shell-fish, which was the only ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... desire it, we know of but one certain course, which is best explained in a brief anecdote. An English gentleman, who was in all the agonies of a rough and tedious passage from Folkestone to Boulogne, was especially irritated by the aggravating nonchalance of a fellow-passenger, who perpetrated all manner of bilious feats, in eating, drinking, and smoking, unharmed. English reserve and the agony of sea-sickness long contended in Sir John's breast. At last the latter conquered, and, leaning from the window of his travelling-carriage, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... ask Miss Maitland's leave next time, before you march out of the room, or you'll get into trouble," said Maisie. "If it weren't your first evening, you'd be expected to make a public apology. Of course, Flossie Taylor and the Hammond-Smiths were aggravating, but you should just have laughed at them, and then they'd have stopped. We don't ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil

... overflowed country, I have to take to the trestle-work and begin the tedious process of trundling along that aggravating roadway, where, to the music of rushing waters, I have to step from tie to tie, and bump, bump, bump, my machine along for six weary miles. The Sacramento River is the outlet for the tremendous volumes of water caused every spring by the melting snows on the Sierra Nevada Mountains, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... wherefrom or whereto of movement: on the contrary, it is the movement that takes its species from the terms. Now apostasy regards unbelief as the term whereto of the movement of withdrawal from the faith; wherefore apostasy does not imply a special kind of unbelief, but an aggravating circumstance thereof, according to 2 Pet. 2:21: "It had been better for them not to know the truth [Vulg.: 'the way of justice'], than after they had known it, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... which she refused him, made him believe that she was sure of Lord Taaffe, and wonder how a girl like her could find out two men who would venture to marry her. He hastened to relate this refusal, with all the most aggravating circumstances, as the best news he could carry to his cousin; but his cousin would not believe him: he supposed that Killegrew disguised the truth, for the same reasons he had already alleged; ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... was ready for the business of the day. No sooner was she liberated from the bondage of the pasture than she made a bold charge upon Brownie, who promptly took to cover behind his mistress, barking the while in a manner both rasping and aggravating to one of Sarah Maria's irritable nervous system. The bovine's attention being now drawn to Nannie, it behooved the latter to clear the path, and in short order, and Steve, who came running to the scene, attracted by the ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington

... want anything at all, but to be left in peace, and that was the aggravating part of it. Malvine had set her heart on marrying him, and marrying him well. Her sentiment for him had long since given place to other and less agitating feelings, as beseemed a model wife, mother, and landed proprietress. She ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... his slaves, having over them the power of life and death. Moral and social degradation was the common lot of slaves. Their wretched condition in pagan times was often rendered more intolerable by aggravating circumstances. Many of them had once enjoyed the blessings of freedom, but had been reduced to bondage by the calamities of war. Unlike the Negro slaves of America, they were usually of the same color as their masters; and in some instances, better educated, more refined, and ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... the heavy, awkward sliprails, and the gaunt cattle stumbled through, with aggravating deliberation, and scattered slowly among the native apple-trees along the sidling. First there came an old easygoing red poley cow, then a dusty white cow; then two shaggy, half-grown calves—who seemed already to have lost all interest ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... aggravating questions which had to be referred to the future. In both wars in this country the Negro had fought a foreign foe—an enemy representing a Christian civilization. He had a sense of security in going to ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... the propriety of sparing the horse, and added that, as they were now far out of the reach of the rogues, he thought Mr. Dintnont had better tie a handkerchief round his head, for fear of the cold frosty air aggravating the wound. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... to do with her, at any rate," cried aggravating Roland. "She'll soon belong to your betters, ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... We made for him. Dan put on an albacore. But it came off before I could let out the line. Then we tried a barracuda. I got a long line out and the hook pulled loose. This was unfortunate and aggravating. We had one barracuda left. Dan hooked ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... to resent the patronizing air of his new friend, a boy of just about his own height and age, but gifted with the most transcendent coolness and assurance, which Tom felt to be aggravating and hard to bear, but couldn't for the life of him help admiring and envying—especially when young my lord begins hectoring two or three long loafing fellows, half porter, half stableman, with a ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... harrow; and the harrow itself ready to tumble into firewood. In addition to these annoyances, the mule and the horse alternated between going the wrong way and not going at all. The man almost wept as he described the aggravating calmness of the animals. When a trace broke they turned, gazed on the wreck, stood still, groaned (by way of a sigh), and seemed to say, "One more brief respite, thank Providence! Fifteen minutes to tie up that old chain, at least!" After a careful survey of the situation and ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... blue robes; the cook is a Chinaman, and the other servants are all Japanese, including one female servant, a sweet, gentle, kindly girl about 4 feet 5 in height, the wife of the head "housemaid." None of the servants speak anything but the most aggravating "pidgun" English, but their deficient speech is more than made up for by the intelligence and service of the orderly in waiting, who is rarely absent from the neighbourhood of the hall door, and attends to the visitors' book and to all messages and notes. There are two real ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... Government of anarchy which England had justifiably refused to treat with from the outset; and, in the second place, the admission of the power of France to dictate terms which England could not accept without degradation, or refuse without aggravating the existing grounds of hostility. Circumstances might arise—such as a change in the Government—to obviate the former difficulty; but the latter was insuperable. It would have been inconsistent with the principles upon which ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... wandering, sun-brown nomads. How frequently the path of the music machine crossed the path of the van, no one knew so well perhaps as Philip, but Philip at times was tantalizing and mysterious and only evidenced his knowledge in peculiar and singularly aggravating ways. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple

... of those who were always armed at all points for a row, and she had no notion of concluding any engagement, of any character whatever, without some disturbance; therefore, to see Henry take what she said with such provoking calmness was aggravating in the extreme; but there was no help for such a source of vexation. She could find no other ground of quarrel than what was connected with the vampyre, and, as Henry would not quarrel with her on such a score, she was compelled to give it up ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... steadily at work, but without producing the least sensible benefit. The ship became so water-logged and heavy that she hardly rose at all to the waves, which con- sequently often washed over the deck and contributed their part toward aggravating our case. Our situation was rapidly becoming as terrible as it had been when the fire was raging in the midst of us; and the prospect of being swallowed by the devouring billows was no less formidable than that of ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne

... number of times it had been round the Cape. The bagman took everything that came his way, and held his tongue about it, which was rather damping. At last, when it came to dessert and the Madeira, Carew, one of our fellows, couldn't stand it any longer—after all, it is aggravating if a man won't praise your best wine, no matter how little you care about his opinion, and the bagman was ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... tempted to pitch it at her," said Billie. "She is the most aggravating human being I ever saw. I'll certainly never address another word to her, but it's so hard to remember ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes

... in a slow, aggravating way, "that Ivor Dundas has behaved very well to—to our family. But I want you to understand this, Di. If he is to be got out of this danger—no doubt it's real danger—in any such way as you propose, it's for me to do it, not you. He'll have ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... the stone in the possession of her father, but now it was worse than before. He avoided her markedly, for the smile which so annoyed him still lighted her face whenever she saw him, and there was in it a reproachful sadness which was even more aggravating than its simple childishness ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various

... literacy, and the legal framework are needed if the country is to move out of poverty. Fighting along the Sierra Leonean and Liberian borders, as well as refugee movements, have caused major economic disruptions, aggravating a loss in investor confidence. Foreign mining companies have reduced expatriate staff. Panic buying has created food shortages and inflation and caused riots in local markets. Guinea is not receiving multilateral aid. The IMF and World Bank cut off most assistance ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... made no difference with Claude, nor did it interfere in the slightest with his self-content and self-complacency. In fact, he looked as though he rather enjoyed the situation; and this was not the least aggravating thing in the surroundings to the ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille

... a powerful effort of the will, by the aid of prayer, and by adopting a more wholesome diet, he succeeded in getting the mastery of his vice. But the local difficulties still continued in a great degree, and under particularly aggravating circumstances occasioned a relapse at long intervals. After a time, the local difficulties grew less and less, and enabled him to gain a complete victory over the habit, though the results of previous sin still remained, for which ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg

... which I find all the reports of the battle of Stone river, and, I am sorry to say, my report is the poorest and most unsatisfactory of the whole lot. The printer, as if for the purpose of aggravating me beyond endurance, has, by an error of punctuation, transformed what I considered a very considerable and creditable action, into an inconsiderable ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... aggravating to the people on board the steamer, to see that little cockle-shell of a yacht dancing safely along over the shoal on which their "leviathan" had struck, and to hear Ford Foster sing out, "If we'd known you meant to run in here, we'd ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard

... refusing effect to a statute requiring the production of his books and papers by a defendant in proceedings for forfeiture, the court said: "Though the proceeding in question is devested of the aggravating effects of actual search and seizure, yet it contains their substance and essence, and effects their substantial purpose. It may be that it is the obnoxious thing in its mildest and least repulsive form; but illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely, ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery

... with mercury, and fitting (somewhat loosely) the tube of the burette. It floats in the solution, and is marked with a horizontal line; this line is taken as the level of the liquid. If the burette is filled from the top, the float rises with aggravating slowness, and this is its chief disadvantage. The float must come to rest ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... The most aggravating and insoluble perplexity which tormented the Southern people lay in dealing with the colored race. Sections of the so-called black belts still weltered in unthrift and decay, as in the darkest reconstruction days. These belts were three in number. The ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews

... seminal pleasures and corrupt passions men are always miserable. The influence of the Gospel of Christ is the only remedy for such diseases. It saves men from aggravating selfishness and holds in check their fierce passions until they are extinguished. Virtuous affections are invariably the great sources of human happiness. They are fountains of living waters, which purify the mind and make their possessors happy. They are as rivers ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 7, July, 1880 • Various

... a great relief to be rid of him, for, as I told Mercer, he was always ten times more sneaky and aggravating during the last half, and you couldn't stoop to hitting a fellow like that, especially when you knew how ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... that, for all his virtue and strength, he misses. I do not know what the quality is exactly, but I do know that he is without it; and in the dry light of Meyrick's mind, I forgive all muddled and irresolute people their sins and foolishnesses, their aggravating incompetence, their practical inefficacy; because I know that they have somehow in a clumsy way got hold of the two great principles that "The end is not yet," and "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." For them the misty goal is not even in sight; ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson

... up-bringing, Mr. Meredith, and if she behaves herself I'll leave her all my money when I die. Not one of my own relatives shall have a cent of it in any case, I'm determined on that. It was the idea of aggravating them that set me to thinking of adopting a child as much as anything in the first place. Una shall be well dressed and educated and trained, Mr. Meredith, and I shall give her music and painting lessons and treat her as ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... do we know it wasn't Abel's fault? He may have been an aggravating child; some are born so, and I've seen a child, many a time, go on at another till he's almost worried him into a frenzy just saying, 'I see you,' over and over again, does it sometimes. Children will do it, of course; besides, there were no commandments then, and you can't expect ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss

... correct and her personality most attractive. She has been very successful in Wagnerian roles, makes a superb Elsa, and, in the "Meistersinger," an ideal Eva. During her early years on the stage her extreme calmness amounted almost to aggravating frigidity, but with time she has thawed. She may well be considered a conscientious artist ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore

... good that I shall go again the first opportunity I have. But, I confess, it was rather aggravating to see so many books, and not be ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... one of those young men that are inherently mean. He was born that way, and his ugly disposition increased with his years. You occasionally meet such persons, whose nature it seems impossible to affect by any method of treatment. What was specially aggravating in Tom Gordon's place was that Zeigler seemed to feel no dislike of any one in the store besides himself. He slurred him the first day he met him, and kept ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... has grown into. It was the work of an unemotional master of technique; only just the infinitely delicate value of the greys and blacks revealed the future master of harmony. One almost might have wished to find a fault in this aggravating perfection. But Degas was not to remain there, and already, about that time, certain portraits of his are elevated by an expression of ardent melancholy, by warm, ivory-like, grave colouring which attracts one's eye. Before this series one feels the firm will of ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair

... observed to operate, though with varied force, in every state in which man has been placed? Is it not a degree of misery, the necessary and inevitable result of the laws of nature, which human institutions, so far from aggravating, have tended considerably to mitigate, ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus

... I sat there until nearly midnight and chattered my teeth almost out of my head with the cold, she did not appear at her window. The aggravating part of it was that while I was shivering out there in the beastly raw, miasmic air, she doubtless was lying on a luxurious couch before a warm fire in a dressing gown and slippers,—ah, slippers!—reading a novel and thinking of nothing in the world but her ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... of General Lee became the occasion of embittering the complaints on this subject, and of aggravating the sufferings of the prisoners of war. Before that event something like a cartel for the exchange of prisoners had been established between Generals Howe and Washington, but the captivity of General Lee interrupted that arrangement. The general, as ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... most useful to me as foresight, but was only aggravating to me as hindsight—which happened to be the way that I got it—was the very sensible notion that I might have put all of my stores, and even a good part of my coal, aboard the boat before she was decked over and launched. A few tons more or less would have ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier

... dear sweetheart, my love for you is the evergreen, and write me, darling, not of the budding trees and the wild flowers so tender in the morning dew, for there is an aggravating indirection to such devotion. Write me, my dearest, so that I ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent

... reach, and there, hanging head downwards, call us every name he could think of. Squirrels have an awful vocabulary, but I never knew one that could talk like Blacky. And every time he thought of something new to say he waved his tail at us in a way that was particularly aggravating. You have no idea how other animals poke fun at us because we have no tails, and how sensitive we really are on the subject. They say that it was to hide our lack of tail that we originally got into the habit of sitting up on our haunches whenever ...
— Bear Brownie - The Life of a Bear • H. P. Robinson

... This was so very aggravating—the more especially as I found myself making no way against his surly obtuseness—that I said, disregarding Herbert's efforts ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... Clyde to run in and out of her house whenever he so pleased—he took it into his head to drop in regularly on the very evening that I had selected and thought especially mine. I believe he only did it to spite me, being of a most aggravating temperament! ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... "Oh, you're aggravating me. Of course you want $1.85 a day—every one wants it! You know perfectly well that that has very little to do with your being a high-priced man. For goodness' sake answer my questions, and don't ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor

... some actually mastered the story of the goose as a torche-cul, and perhaps two or three chapters more; but as for reading through or enjoying it, "that was not in their minds." All complained, or at least showed, that they "did not understand it." It was to them an aggravating farrago of filth and oddity, under which they suspected some formal allegory or meaning which had perished, or was impenetrable. Learn this, ye prigs of morality, that no work of genius ever yet demoralised a dolt or ignoramus. Even the Old Testament, with all ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... almost always the same, and the discerning eye may easily detect them, from the beginning to the end of our modern commercial experience. In the existing difficulties, in this country, the railroad speculations have had much to do with producing and aggravating the effect; but the primary source of it, we think, is to be found in the ease with which our currency is inflated, under a banking system which varies from State to State, and which, outside of New England and New York, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... no fear of my telling anybody. Wild horses would never pull a syllable out of me. The young men is so aggravating that I keep my proper distance from them. But the mind must be made up, at one ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... to keep him bound. He, who had been her pupil, had now far outgrown her capacity to understand his endeavors and achievements; and he felt that he could sacrifice much for her, but not himself, his personality, and his mission. And so the unwholesome relation wore on, with aggravating ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... elegance of my expressions. Aunt Clara paid no heed to either of us, but laughed on. The most provoking thing in the world is a laugh that you don't understand. Here was the whole Dorcas Society laughing through its presidentess, and Aunt Clara joining in the laugh in meeting, and aggravating the offence by stereotyping the smirk in her face. In came mother again, evidently afraid to stay out, and not liking for some reason to stay in. Again we tried the tune, and had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... all perfection in your eyes at present," returned the beauty in an aggravating tone, as she rose to retire; "but this day six months I wonder how she will appear to ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton

... relief afforded to another. To the great principle sanctioned by that act—one of those upon which the Constitution itself was formed—I hope and trust the authorities of the Union will adhere. But if any of the duties imposed by the act only relieve the manufacturer by aggravating the burden of the planter, let a careful revisal of its provisions, enlightened by the practical experience of its effects, be directed to retain those which impart protection to native industry and remove or supply the place ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson

... run across him at Midlands, some evening," he said, "and get one of those presentations that are the most aggravating things in the world. I don't want that to happen, and the best way, to use an elegant phrase, is to take the bull by the horns, or in this case, the sheep by the tail. Will you make an accidental call on him to-morrow afternoon and let me be ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter

... would jump at the chance. I do believe, Beatrice, you are hanging back just to be aggravating. And there's another thing, Beatrice. I don't approve of the way this Keith Cameron ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower

... aggravating creature tossed his head as Moussa, with a grunt of energy, brought the vessel down, and the rim merely struck the top of the shaven skull. Another—harder. Another—with frenzied strength and the force of long-suppressed rage and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... night, with occasional fits of penitence and petting which lasted till next time. Therefore, though dying to 'fess,' he was undecided as to the best method of executing that task in the manner most aggravating to his listener and most agreeable to himself, and sat regarding her with twinkling eyes, and his curly pate in a high state of rumple, trying to appear innocently ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott



Words linked to "Aggravating" :   intensifying, exasperating, exacerbating



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