exasperate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To make very angry or impatient; annoy greatly.
2. v. To increase the gravity or intensity of: "a scene . . . that exasperates his rose fever and makes him sneeze” ( Samuel Beckett).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To irritate to a high degree; make very angry; provoke to rage; enrage: as, to exasperate an opponent.
2. To incite by means of irritation; stimulate through anger or rage; stir up.
3. To make grievous or more grievous; aggravate; embitter: as, to exasperate enmity.
4. To augment the intensity of; exacerbate: as, to exasperate inflammation or a part inflamed.
5. Synonyms Provoke, Incense, Exasperate, Irritate; vex, chafe, nettle, sting. The first four words all refer to the production of angry and generally demonstrative feeling. Irritate often has to do with the nerves, but all have to do with the mind. Provoke is perhaps the most sudden; exasperate is the strongest and least self-controlled; incense stands second in these respects.
6. To increase in severity.
7. Irritated; inflamed.
8. In botany, rough; covered with hard, projecting points.

Wiktionary

1. v. To frustrate, vex, provoke, or annoy; to make angry.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. obsolete Exasperated; imbittered.
2. v. To irritate in a high degree; to provoke; to enrage; to excite or to inflame the anger of.
3. v. To make grievous, or more grievous or malignant; to aggravate; to imbitter.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. make furious
2. v. exasperate or irritate
3. v. make worse