Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that is inconvenient, annoying, or vexatious; a bother.
  • noun Law A use of property or course of conduct that interferes with the legal rights of others by causing damage, annoyance, or inconvenience.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Injured or painful feeling; annoyance; displeasure; grief.
  • noun An annoying experience; a grievous infliction; trouble; inconvenience.
  • noun The infliction of hurt or injury.
  • noun That which or one who annoys, or gives trouble or injury; a troublesome or annoying thing; that which is noxious, offensive, or irritating; a plague; a bore: applied to persons and things.
  • noun In law, such a use of property or such a course of conduct as, irrespective of actual trespass against others or of malicious or actual criminal intent, transgresses the just restrictions upon use or conduct which the proximity of other persons or property in civilized communities imposes upon what would otherwise be rightful freedom.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun That which annoys or gives trouble and vexation; that which is offensive or noxious.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A minor annoyance or inconvenience.
  • noun A person or thing causing annoyance or inconvenience.
  • noun law Anything harmful or offensive to the community or to a member of it, for which a legal remedy exists.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (law) a broad legal concept including anything that disturbs the reasonable use of your property or endangers life and health or is offensive
  • noun a bothersome annoying person

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from nuire, nuis-, to harm, from Vulgar Latin *nocere, from Latin nocēre; see nek- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman nusaunce, nussance etc., from Old French nuisance, from nuisire ("to harm") (, from Latin noceō ("I harm"))

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word nuisance.

Examples

  • Being a nuisance is the way the child makes a home to return to.

    "Nuisance Value" M-mv 2004

  • Being a nuisance is the way the child makes a home to return to.

    Archive 2004-09-01 M-mv 2004

  • The latter would sound like what lawyers term nuisance settlements -- the money corporations routinely shell out to make frivolous claims go away.

    ProPublica: When Is a Scoop Ready to be Published? ProPublica 2011

  • Beyond the nuisance, is there anything wrong with a little traffic?

    Tales of the Road MD Vikram Sheel Kumar 2010

  • Beyond the nuisance, is there anything wrong with a little traffic?

    Tales of the Road MD Vikram Sheel Kumar 2010

  • So I am to believe an attention seeker who dubs around online all day trying to be a nuisance is capable of judging the caliber of another man who actually has made something of themselves?

    Think Progress » Caving To Right-Wing Pressure, White House Reportedly Moving KSM Trial To Military Commission 2010

  • I expect Lewes is like other provincial towns in suffering from endless low-level nuisance from the yoof, who are scarcely ever even so much as told to stop: loutish behaviour, noise, breaking and spoiling things in public places.

    Early Day Motions Newmania Style Newmania 2008

  • For Washington, having Chavez represent our regional neighbors would be an immediate slap in the face, and a significant long-term nuisance on the array of top priority issues now sitting with the Council, i.e. North Korea, Iran and the Lebanese ceasefire.

    Suzanne Nossel: Don't Cry for Me Venezuela 2008

  • According to spamhaus. org, a Web site that tracks spam and its sources, Soloway has been a long-term nuisance the Internet, both in terms of the spam that he's sent and the people that he duped to use his spam service.

    CNN Transcript May 31, 2007 2007

  • Let's go back now to John Kerry's use of the word nuisance, in relation to terrorism in that "New York Times" article on Sunday.

    CNN Transcript Oct 11, 2004 2004

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Another nuisance is the nest of the large red ant; these collect and glue the leaves together, forming a cavity for the deposition of their(online dictionary)

    September 23, 2010