rankle
Americanverb (used without object)
-
rankles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
rankled,
past participle, past
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rankling
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
rankles,
present (3rd person singular)
-
rankled,
past participle, past
-
rankling
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
ranklesimple
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ranklessimple
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have rankledperfect
-
has rankledperfect
-
am ranklingprogressive
-
are ranklingprogressive
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is ranklingprogressive
-
have been ranklingperfect progressive
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has been ranklingperfect progressive
Past
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rankledsimple
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had rankledperfect
-
was ranklingprogressive
-
were ranklingprogressive
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had been ranklingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of rankle
1250–1300; Middle English ranclen < Middle French rancler, Old French raoncler, variant of draoncler to fester, derivative of draoncle a sore < Late Latin dracunculus small serpent, diminutive of Latin dracō serpent; see dragon, carbuncle
Explanation
Rankle is a cranky-sounding verb that means to eat away at or aggravate to the point of causing anger. If you want to rankle a cat, try splashing it with water and then putting it in the bathtub. Rankle goes back to the French verb rancler, which comes from an old word for "festering sore," which paints a pretty negative picture of what it means to rankle. A sore that festers gets worse and worse, or more infected, and if you rankle someone, they will get more and more angry. "Ankle" rhymes with rankle, and if you were to prank a friend and hold him by his ankles over a trash can every day for a week, it would definitely rankle him.
Vocabulary lists containing rankle
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
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Beowulf
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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 defeat and the nature of it will rankle, especially because she was considered a serious challenger for the title.
From Barron's ● Jan. 28, 2026
But the lack of progress on the issue has started to rankle the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union for officers below the rank of lieutenant.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 18, 2025
That seemed to rankle several of the justices across ideological lines.
From Slate ● Jan. 10, 2025
Choi plays him accurately enough to rankle his home country’s audience, and believably enough to earn the rapper new fans in the U.S. and elsewhere.
From Salon ● Jan. 5, 2025
I was proud of my sister, but that year, something began to rankle beneath the pride.
From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson
What rankles most, say many Greenlanders, is that Trump treated their home–which he called “a piece of ice, cold and poorly located” —as a commodity.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 24, 2026
It is clear from speaking to Pochettino that it particularly rankles from his time at Tottenham.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2025
But what rankles him is not so much the scope of the agenda.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 14, 2025
That rankles, and the latest street protests over pay have come from police officers.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 8, 2024
But the truth is, that no arrow which has been shot into the camp of the "Holy Alliance" rankles more deeply, or has worked worse execution, than the exposure of the authorship of "McDonough."
From Nuts for Future Historians to Crack by Horace Wemyss Smith
In the first few weeks of the program, Nvidia rankled some of its potential partners with the extent of control it sought, some of the people familiar with the matter said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
What really rankled, they said, was that there had been no consultation about placing migrants at the base – or in the town.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
While Raymond was said to be conscientious and loyal to close associates, he commanded a mixture of respect and fear, and his demeanor occasionally rankled fellow employees, competitors and outsiders such as Wall Street analysts.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
That rankled politicians in Berlin and executives at Airbus, who feared being squeezed out of contracts.
From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026
For the moment, Chadwick’s scorn, sounding as it did from deep within the bastion of small science, rankled deeply.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
The military warning—first reported in the Washington Post, then confirmed in the New York Times—must be particularly rankling.
From Slate ● Feb. 24, 2026
Cheap replicas are flooding the market for the old-timey pens, rankling fans of a product long known for steep prices and a user base dominated by royalty, politicians and wealthy elites.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 2, 2025
Those shifts made it harder for many apps to target advertising to users, rankling tech executives including Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.
From New York Times ● Nov. 28, 2022
Bobo’s only misstep other than calling In-N-Out “overrated,” rankling fans of the wildly popular burger chain, came in the season opener.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2022
When he did find some time to visit me, he was very preoccupied, and I could feel him rankling with anger and with inactivity, but he tried hard to hide it.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
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.
