Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Causing extreme irritation or chagrin; vexing: a galling delay; a galling setback to their plans.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Such as to gall, irritate, or distress; extremely annoying; harrowing; provoking.
Wiktionary
- adj. vexing, humiliating
- v. present participle of gall.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Fitted to gall or chafe; vexing; harassing; irritating.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. causing irritation or annoyance
Etymologies
- From gall + -ing. The adjective follows from the verb. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“What makes the situation so galling is that we, now playing second banana, are in no way a threat to them.”
Matthew Yglesias » Staggeringly Off-the-Mark Forecasts of European Economic Preeminence
“And most galling is that this entire legislative exercise was unnecessary.”
“I take that back, the thing that's MOST galling is that he's going to continue to allow American troops to DIE NEEDLESSLY while he dithers about looking smart and thoughtful.”
“I don't have a prblm with cheating, per se, we are not gods, we are humans, despite what the Christian right preaches, what I find galling is the people who pretend to be what they are not.”
“What make this automatic 50% of surnames excision particularly galling is that for almost all of us, the only parentage we can claim with certainty is maternal.”
“What she finds particularly galling is the tea partiers 'oft-repeated revolutionary cry of taxation without representation, despite the election of a president on the highest voter turnout since 1968.”
The Washington Post: Three books on the Tea Party, reviewed by Steven Levingston
“What makes this even more galling is that there are probably more people working in our “corporate communications” dept than I have alongside me when I parade on for my shift.”
“What he finds galling is that his village is prohibited from drilling wells, is beholden to Israeli authorities about where it can go to buy water and, now, can't even get permission for its water trucks to move through Israeli checkpoints.”
“How galling is it for you mind forged manacled liberals to slowly realize you're going to lose again? cherrystrawberry”
“Let me clarify that what I find so galling is the fact that progressive readers will completely misinterpret this story.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘galling’.
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allover
reintegrate, spight, surveillant, harmonize, Colophon, workplace, bigoted, unsighted, bridgework, salutation, voltmeter, octane and 159 more...
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select words
luminous, radiant, malicious, zeal, ojalá, voluptuary, rubbish, purlicue, consarnit, upstart, precis, robinsonade and 66 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1901 more...
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Sense and Sensibility
Words from the book by Jane Austen.
shew, shewn, shewing, shewed, dupe, wither, rambled, extorting, cavil, rap, mildness, controuled and 133 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 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 2719 more...
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random
words I read but don't know
nascent, proxy, desultory, charlatan, churlish, emaciated, gaudy, shill, lurid, frisson, marauding, plunder and 610 more...
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The Golem's Eye
Words and phrases from Jonathan Stroud's book, The Golem's Eye.
ordure, widdershins, cop, stipple, ostler, struts, minaret, chemise, remonstrate, concussion, wicket, vamoose and 249 more...
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Negative
caitiff, valetudinarian, fell, whiffler, attercop, Shaitan, Jezebel, desultory, panjandrum, limmer, cockalorum, laodicean and 91 more...
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New GRE Preparation List
All the words which I encounter during my GRE studies. :)
rhetoric, errant, arrant, artless, artful, ephemeral, libel, rhapsody, cloy, conjecture, relegate, aberrant and 927 more...
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lucidityprevails's Words
lucidity, journalistic, truthiness, foolhardy, egotism, lesbian, orgasmic, activism, moonglow, voodoo, conquer, demolish and 534 more...
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100 words to make you sound great
adamant, affectation, affinity, allay, amelioration, amenable, amoral, assuage, bauble, beguile, beset, bulwark and 88 more...
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Words to Use - 2010
A list of words I will attempt to use throughout the year.
capricious, caustic, contrition, auspicious, melancholy, insidious, mendacity, sardonic, ennui, efficacious, galling, galvanizing and 22 more...
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i feel irritated
galling, stare moodily, trapped feeling, welled up inside, thoughts whirling..., writhed with anger, scowling, snarled, grunted, curled into fists, demand all his se..., muscle twitching and 10 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for galling.

GHibbs My adjectival use: 'He said that it was a galling experience, because all his friends were there.' Aug 22, 2011