exasperated
Americanadjective
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of exasperated
Explanation
It’s understandable if you get exasperated, or really frustrated, if you’re standing in the supermarket's express lane and everyone in front of you has way more than the 10-item maximum. Over the centuries, nothing much has happened to the definition of this word — the Latin original means "irritated to anger." Speaking of which, let's get back to the supermarket, a veritable hotbed of exasperated people pushing wobbly-wheeled shopping carts their children try to fill with cartoon-branded junk food, brushing past unstable store displays that come tumbling down, enduring inoffensive but flavorless supermarket music, and emerging into the cold light of day unable to remember where they parked the car.
Vocabulary lists containing exasperated
The Giver
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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Number the Stars
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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.
On the hard-news side, she bungled big moments like an interview with Vladimir Putin, who batted away her questions about 2016 election meddling with an exasperated performance of ignorance.
From Slate • May 6, 2026
He hated school and his exasperated father told him that he would stop punishing him for bad reports if he applied himself to reading.
From BBC • Mar. 17, 2026
In America, the lasting image of the time is of cars and exasperated drivers waiting for hours in fuel lines.
From Barron's • Mar. 13, 2026
Documentarian Geeta Gandbhir retraces this slow-moving tragedy through the body camera footage of the exasperated officers who know that the caller, not the children, is the problem.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 10, 2026
In 1966, exasperated with ever-rising costs and no results, Congress killed the project.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
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.
