rankle
Americanverb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
ranklesimple
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ranklessimple
-
have rankledperfect
-
has rankledperfect
-
am ranklingprogressive
-
are ranklingprogressive
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is ranklingprogressive
-
have been ranklingperfect progressive
-
has been ranklingperfect progressive
Past
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rankledsimple
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had rankledperfect
-
was ranklingprogressive
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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
For a president championed as Mexico’s most environmentally conscious leader – before entering politics, Sheinbaum was an accomplished environmental engineer – that must rankle.
From BBC ● Oct. 27, 2024
Winter has been unafraid to rankle city and county officials as she has criticized the status quo.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2024
Maher’s long-running show is a reliable buzz-generator, often for reasons that rankle progressives.
From Salon ● Sep. 14, 2024
I was proud of my sister, but that year, something began to rankle beneath the pride.
From "Jacob Have I Loved" by Katherine Paterson
And that dominion over the means of app distribution rankles other tech heavyweights who are trying to find ways to control their own destiny, including Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and Elon Musk.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
Marvin Casey did not get to interrogate John Orr or arrest him or even tag along, which still rankles a little, but Casey did more than anyone to expose Orr’s double life.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 29, 2025
That rankles Tasmanian Aboriginal people like Nala: "It's just a kick in the guts."
From BBC ● Sep. 14, 2024
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 Smith, Horace Wemyss
The insularity of the “60 Minutes” operation — which has its own suite of offices across the street from the main headquarters of CBS News — has rankled the network’s executives in the past.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026
But rejections issued to companies by Vinay Prasad, the former head of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, rankled the industry.
From Barron's ● May 12, 2026
ROME—Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who met Italian leaders here on Friday, offered allies rankled by President Trump words of both support and warning.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
King was Jackson’s mentor, but this act rankled the civil rights leader’s more senior allies, who viewed it as rank self-promotion.
From Salon ● Feb. 22, 2026
What rankled most was the treaty’s humiliating “war guilt” clause, placing the blame entirely at Germany’s feet.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
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
The legal news website SCOTUSblog has also begun using interim docket as its default nomenclature, rankling some commentators who accused the site of adopting a term that plays down the real-world repercussions of interim orders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 28, 2025
But officials from the F.B.I. and Justice Department pushed back this month on specific proposals during their first public appearance on Capitol Hill to discuss the matter, rankling lawmakers.
From New York Times ● Jul. 3, 2023
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.
