Search the Dictionary

To vex; to annoy; to startle. [Obs. or Prov. Eng. & Scot.]

To feel, or endure, with pain, annoyance, etc.; to submit to with distress or grief; to undergo; as, to suffer pain of body, or grief of mind.

To vex with importunity or impertinence; to harass, annoy, disturb, or irritate by petty requests, or by jests and raillery; to plague. Cowper. He . . . suffered them to tease him into acts directly opposed to his strongest inclinations. Macaulay.

Fig.: That which pricks or annoys as a thorn; anything troublesome; trouble; care. There was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me. 2 Cor. xii. 7. The guilt of empire, all its thorns and cares, Be only mine. Southern.

To crowd, or press, as persons; to oppress or annoy with a crowd of living beings. Much people followed him, and thronged him. Mark v. 24.

ent body of marksmen in the French army. They were used sometimes in front of the army to annoy the enemy, sometimes in the rear to check his pursuit. The term is now applied to all troops acting as skirmishers.

To tease; to vex; to harass; as, to be tormented with importunities, or with petty annoyances. [Colloq.]

Anything producing torment, annoyance, or pain. [Obs.] Chaucer.

To commit any offense, or to do any act that injures or annoys another; to violate any rule of rectitude, to the injury of another; hence, in a moral sense, to transgress voluntarily any divine law or command; to violate any known rule of duty; to sin; -- often followed by against. In the time of his distress did he tr…

Mischievous or annoying behavior; a prank; as, the tricks of boys. Prior.

To disturb; to perplex; to afflict; to distress; to grieve; to fret; to annoy; to vex. Now is my soul troubled. John xii. 27. Take the boy to you; he so troubles me 'T is past enduring. Shak. Never trouble yourself about those faults which age will cure. Locke.

Unfavorable; annoying; malignant. Milton.

To sting with, or as with, nettles; to irritate; to annoy. G. A. Sala.

To make angry or annoyed by little provocations; to irritate; to plague; to torment; to harass; to afflict; to trouble; to tease. "I will not vex your souls." Shak. Then thousand torments vex my heart. Prior.

Causing vexation; agitating; afflictive; annoying; as, a vexatious controversy; a vexatious neighbor. "Continual vexatious wars." South.

Annoyed; harassed; troubled.

Inclined to worry or fret; also, causing worry or annoyance.

To worry; to annoy. [Illiterate]

To harass or beset with importunity, or with care an anxiety; to vex; to annoy; to torment; to tease; to fret; to trouble; to plague. "A church worried with reformation." South. Let them rail, And worry one another at their pleasure. Rowe. Worry him out till he gives consent. Swift.