exacerbate

English

Etymology

From Latin exacerbo (“to provoke”); ex (“out of; thoroughly”) + acerbo (“to embitter, harshen or worsen”).

Pronunciation

• (US) enPR: ĭg-zăs'ər-bāt, IPA^(key): /ɪɡˈzæsɚˌbeɪt/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɪɡˈzæsəˌbeɪt/, /ɪkˈsæs-/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ex‧acer‧bate

Verb

exacerbate (third-person singular simple present exacerbates, present participle exacerbating, simple past and past participle exacerbated)

1. (transitive) To make worse (a problem, bad situation, negative feeling, etc.); aggravate.

   The proposed shutdown would exacerbate unemployment problems.

   • 1986, Peter P. Cheng, “1978: The Four Modernizations on the March”, in Chronology of The People's Republic of China, 1970-1979‎^[1], Scarecrow Press, Inc., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 395:

     Sino-Soviet relations were exacerbated by a border incident on May 9. Beijing charged that thirty Soviet troops, supported by a helicopter and navy boats, crossed the Ussuri River into the Hulin area of Heilongjiang province.

   • 2004, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright, Shaun of the Dead:

     Liz: It's just with Ed here, it's no wonder I always bring my flat-mates out and then that only exacerbates things.
     Shaun: What do you mean?
     Liz: Well you guys hardly get on, do you?
     Shaun: No, what does "exacerbate" mean?

   • 2013 August 20, Louise Taylor, “English talent gets left behind as Premier League keeps importing”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

     The reasons for this growing disconnect are myriad and complex but the situation is exacerbated by the reality that those English players who do smash through our game's "glass ceiling" command radically inflated transfer fees.

Derived terms

• exacerbatingly
• exacerbation

Related terms

• acerbate

Translations

make worse

• Armenian: սաստկացնել (hy) (sastkacʻnel)
• Bulgarian: влошавам (bg) (vlošavam)
• Catalan: exacerbar (ca), agreujar (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 使惡化／使恶化 (shǐ èhuà), 加劇／加剧 (zh) (jiājù), 加重 (zh) (jiāzhòng)

• Danish: forværre (da), skærpe
• Dutch: verslechteren (nl), verergeren (nl), exacerberen (nl)
• Finnish: pahentaa (fi)
• French: exacerber (fr), agraver (fr), empirer (fr)
• German: verschlimmern (de), verschärfen (de)
• Irish: géaraigh
• Italian: esacerbare (it)
• Japanese: 悪化させる (ja) (akka saseru)
• Latin: exacerbō
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: forverre, skjerpe

  Nynorsk: forverre

• Portuguese: exacerbar (pt)
• Russian: ухудшать (ru) (uxudšatʹ) (uxudšát’), усугублять (ru) impf (usugubljatʹ)
• Spanish: exacerbar (es), agravar (es)
• Swedish: förvärra (sv), skärpa (sv)
• Turkish: kötüleştirmek (tr)
• Ukrainian: загострювати (zahostrjuvaty), поглиблювати (pohlybljuvaty), погіршувати (pohiršuvaty)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Latin: exacerbo

See also

• exasperate

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “exacerbate”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Latin

Verb

exacerbāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of exacerbō

Spanish

Verb

exacerbate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of exacerbar combined with te