Aggravate/irritate
To aggravate something is to make it worse; to irritate is to create a new condition. Example: "Mary was irritated because John was late for the wedding, and the fact that he forgot the ring aggravated the situation." Exacerbate is a synonym for aggravate; annoy is a synonym for irritate.
Get The Lost Art of the Great Speech: How to Write It * How to Deliver It now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
