bother
Americanverb (used with object)
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bothers,
present (3rd person singular)
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bothered,
past participle, past
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bothering
present participle
verb (used without object)
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bothers,
present (3rd person singular)
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bothered,
past participle, past
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bothering
present participle
noun
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bothers
plural
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something troublesome, burdensome, or annoying.
Doing the laundry every week can be a terrible bother.
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effort, work, or worry.
Gardening takes more bother than it's worth.
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a worried or perplexed state.
Don't get into such a bother about small matters.
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someone or something that bothers or annoys.
My cousin is a perpetual bother to me.
interjection
verb
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(tr) to give annoyance, pain, or trouble to; irritate
his bad leg is bothering him again
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(tr) to trouble (a person) by repeatedly disturbing; pester
stop bothering your father!
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(intr) to take the time or trouble; concern oneself
don't bother to come with me
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(tr) to make (a person) alarmed or confused
the thought of her husband's return clearly bothered her
noun
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a state of worry, trouble, or confusion
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a person or thing that causes fuss, trouble, or annoyance
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informal a disturbance or fight; trouble (esp in the phrase a spot of bother )
interjection
Synonym Usage
Bother, annoy, plague, tease imply persistent interference with one's comfort or peace of mind. Bother suggests causing trouble or weariness or repeatedly interrupting in the midst of pressing duties. To annoy is to vex or irritate by bothering. Plague is a strong word, connoting unremitting annoyance and harassment. To tease is to provoke or irritate persistently with petty distractions.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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bothersimple
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botherssimple
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have botheredperfect
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has botheredperfect
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am botheringprogressive
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are botheringprogressive
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is botheringprogressive
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have been botheringperfect progressive
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has been botheringperfect progressive
Past
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botheredsimple
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had botheredperfect
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was botheringprogressive
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were botheringprogressive
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had been botheringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of bother
First recorded in 1710–20; origin obscure; originally Hiberno-English; perhaps a hypercorrection of bodder, an alternative early form; perhaps a variant of pother ( def. )
Explanation
The word bother has many shades of meaning, but most of them involve trouble of some sort. You might wonder why you should bother to follow a recipe, until you taste what you've made without one. As a verb, bother can mean that you take the trouble to do something. It’s often presented as a negative: you might not bother to lock the house, or you may wonder why you should bother reading the instructions that came with your phone. Bother can also mean that you’re bugging someone or causing a minor inconvenience. The word can also have a sense of deeper worry, especially when something is bothering you, like a nagging sense of guilt.
Vocabulary lists containing bother
The SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words, List 4
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"Seventh Grade" by Gary Soto
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The New SAT: Multiple-Meaning Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The obvious suspect is an undiagnosed injury, even if Skenes said at the All-Star break that he wasn’t hurt and that the dip in velocity didn’t bother him.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
This means that if you have no better than random success at picking the best and worst days, you shouldn’t bother.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 14, 2026
Only after that did Pirro bother to review the evidence and conclude the renovation was at fault.
From Salon ● Aug. 7, 2026
“The heat doesn’t bother me much,” he said, unloading his bicycle — a blue and yellow 1989 Trek 400 — from the trunk of his car on a side street in Reseda.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2026
“Sorry to bother you. I was told you… Wait!”
From "The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest" by Aubrey Hartman
What bothers me is that you signed a document — we don’t even know if it was an acceptance of appointment — without reading it.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 7, 2026
"I think sometimes my lack of friends tends to bother the people around me more than it bothers me."
From BBC ● Aug. 1, 2026
Smith played catch Tuesday, Roberts said, which “went OK,” but Smith’s neck bothers him the most while swinging.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2026
But it bothers me that the last two times that small-caps beat the biggest by so much, it was painful for investors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026
Something about his appearance bothers her, but she cannot identify what, exactly.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
But until then, it hadn’t bothered him all season, minor-league rehab stints included.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 2, 2026
“If she’d have gone to Lowe’s or Home Depot, it wouldn’t bother me. But you’re opening a school? That bothered me.”
From Salon ● Jul. 27, 2026
It would have been embarrassing for them even to be confronted for saying so if anyone bothered to confront them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
Oh, and he's not bothered about the term "youth club".
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
Alt-A was just what they called crappy mortgage loans for which they hadn’t even bothered to acquire the proper documents—to verify the borrower’s income, say.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
When it offered him half a song, he said, “Good enough” — without even bothering to run it through a few rounds of polishing.
From Salon ● Aug. 6, 2026
But the result is often fishy products that exist because investors aren’t bothering to do the math.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
“Stop bothering Kim, OK?” the man said, according to Ma.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
Former British number one Draper has only played 15 matches in the past 12 months, largely because of the bruised humerus that has been bothering him for over a year.
From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026
“Huh,” Jonah said, barely bothering to look at the paper.
From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
