- past tense form of exasperate.
- past participle of exasperate.
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.
Some see a dark irony: Five years ago, an exasperated President Andrés Manuel López Obrador bemoaned that a corrupt customs regime had allowed organized crime to take over land and maritime ports of entry.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2026
Citing unnamed US officials, NBC News reported earlier this week that Trump erupted in anger during a recent White House meeting and was "exasperated" by his limited available options to end the war.
From Barron's ● Jul. 31, 2026
It’s funny, my mother used to look at me with an expression that was neither mocking nor exasperated, merely seasoned, and say, “Baby, not everything needs to be a production.”
From Salon ● Jul. 28, 2026
The first, crucial step was securing support for his appointment from elected politicians whose constituents are exasperated with inflation and the Fed’s apparent inability to date to explain what went wrong after 2021 and why.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026
She blows her hair out of her eyes in a big exasperated puff.
From "A Good Kind of Trouble" by Lisa Moore Ramée
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.
