try one's patience

1. Put one's tolerance to a severe test, cause one to be annoyed, as in Putting these parts together really tries my patience, or Her constant lateness tries our patience. This idiom uses try in the sense of “test,” a usage dating from about 1300.

Related Words

• annoy 
• bother 
• disturb 
• exasperate 
• gall 
• inflame 
• irk 
• irritate 
• peeve 
• provoke 
• roil 
• vex