Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To increase the severity, violence, or bitterness of; aggravate: a speech that exacerbated racial tensions; a heavy rainfall that exacerbated the flood problems.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To increase the bitterness or virulence of; make more violent, as a disease, or angry, hostile, or malignant feelings; aggravate; exasperate.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To render more violent or bitter; to irritate; to exasperate; to imbitter, as passions or disease.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make worse
- v. exasperate or irritate
Etymologies
- Latin exacerbāre, exacerbāt- : ex-, intensive pref.; see ex- + acerbāre, to make harsh (from acerbus, harsh; see ak- in Indo-European roots).
Examples
“How everybody's all pretending they know what in hell the word exacerbate means.”
Alvin Journeyman
“He also warned Nato not to "exacerbate" its presence in the region.”
The Guardian: Russia and Norway resolve Arctic border dispute
“Why am I sure the Pope's reply will be couched in some stupid definition of "exacerbate" along the lines of "encourage promiscuous behaviour"?”
“Recent research suggests that "Willpower" may exacerbate the very problem it is trying to reduce by promoting the idea of self-control as a limited resource.”
“They speculated "that by 2025 California will not have enough highly educated workers to meet the demands of these new economy jobs...and This lack of higher education will exacerbate the income gap between rich and poor" and contribute to even higher unemployment rates.”
The Huffington Post: John M. Eger: California Museums Can Help California Schools
“If somebody's got an illness, stress can exacerbate that.”
USA Today: Summitt determined to face down Alzheimer's challenge
“The flight of the middle classes to paid-for antenatal classes as free NHS services are run down threatens to exacerbate the divide between the rich and poor, according to the Royal College of Midwives.”
The Guardian: Middle class flock to private antenatal care as cuts bite
“BROWNBERG: All the while striving to ignore any nuance to the naturally reactive cycles of free-market economies, but always bearing in mind our ethical responsibility not to further exacerbate or in any way worsen the current financial predicament, especially through the shallow pursuit of hype or ratings, by willfully cultivating any sense of PANIIIIIIIIIIIIIC!!!!!!!!!!”
The Huffington Post: Martin Marks: This Is CNFMNSTV's Lightning Brunch
“The Brazilian president stressed the need for greater physical integration between Peru and Brazil, including the dreaded Inter-Oceanic Highway which stood to exacerbate deforestation in the Amazon for more on this, see my book No Rain in the Amazon: How South America's Climate Change Affects the Entire Planet.”
The Huffington Post: Nikolas Kozloff: WikiLeaks: U.S. and Brazil Vie for Power in Peru
“Don't feed stray animals and don't encourage them into restaurants or hostels, you will only stay for a few days, but your actions can inadvertently exacerbate the problem.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘exacerbate’.
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Words I Used to Know
Words that make you go "I know that word...what the heck does it mean?!?
pulchritude, sanguine, trenchant, picaresque, gloaming, perfidious, confabulation, epiphany, importune, fulminate, efficacious, maladroit and 111 more...
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Ezzackly's list
Words I like.
exacerbate, queerious, whom, hyperbolic, paradoxically, consequently, anana, forte, indicative, agnostic, monotonous, supposedly and 18 more...
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Words for Anna
exacerbate, pixilate, obviate, placate, titilate, interpolate, perambulate, vacillate, abnegate, indignant, perpetrate, conjure and 7 more...
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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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Hit Parade GRE
Princeton Review words
abscond, aberrant, alacrity, anomaly, approbation, arduous, assuage, audacious, austere, axiomatic, canonical, capricious and 287 more...
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Units Of Language
Word:
-a unit of language consisting of one or more spoken sounds or their written representation, that functions as a principal carrier of meaning.sulk, promenade, skulk, idle, subsequently, moody, paroxysm, felony, anent, generic, hallucinogen, synaesthesia and 214 more...
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Links Spelling Bee 2012
230 Words
gargalesthesia, bondieuserie, aguinaldo, alcazar, allosaurus, ambidexterity, ameliorate, anachronism, androcentric, ankylosaurus, anthropology, apartheid and 123 more...
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Dictionary.com Words of the Days of 1999
1999 · 2000 · 2001 · 2002 · 2003 · 2004 · 2005 · 2006 · 2007 · 2008
emolument, palindrome, deprecate, bivouac, umbrage, incipient, dapple, pugnacious, capitulate, susurrus, thaumaturgy, capacious and 229 more...
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Don't Be a LAZY LINGUIST!
Words that remind me to:
Stop speaking with laze.
Exercise my intellect more than my tongue.
Choose Better Company.
This is not the "Ooh, I love the way these words ...splore, inoculate, dysphemism, bruit, mellifluous, winsome, rancor, aplomb, equivocate, palpable, equivocate, licentious and 127 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2536 more...
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GENERAL
acquiesce, adjunct, affable, alacrity, amiable, anodyne, anachronism, apex, aphorism, arbitrary, arch, archetype and 181 more...
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GRE Prep
prattle, precipitate, predilection, prescience, prevaricate, equivocate, qualms, recant, refute, relegate, reticent, solicitous and 269 more...
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Favorite Words
pablum, maundy, histrionic, adamant, ascribe, verbiage, insouciant, erudite, gregarious, superfluous, banal, obdurate and 280 more...
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Good Wordfest Words
burgeon, exacerbate, artifice, cogent, gregarious, magnanimous, conciliatory, deplore, panacea, decimate, insular, deference and 159 more...
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_mark's list
Words I like!
( personal list, favorite words, randomness )psy, nanobot, success, smack, vibration, microcosmic, springgraph, marksmanship, estranged, homoerotic, flex, fiasco and 1288 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2707 more...


Jul 4, 2009