different between aggravate vs augment

English

Etymology

From Latin aggravatus, past participle of aggravare (“to add to the weight of, make worse, oppress, annoy”), from ad (“to”) + gravare (“to make heavy”), from gravis (“heavy”). See grave and compare aggrieve and aggrege.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æ?.??.ve??t/

Verb

aggravate (third-person singular simple present aggravates, present participle aggravating, simple past and past participle aggravated)

1. To make (an offence) worse or more severe; to increase in offensiveness or heinousness. [from 16th c.]
   • 1709 Joseph Addison, The Tatler

     The defense made by the prisoner's counsel did rather aggravate than extenuate his crime.

2. (by extension) To make worse; to exacerbate. [from 16th c.]
   • 1837, William H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic

     […] to aggravate the horrors of the scene

3. (now rare) To give extra weight or intensity to; to exaggerate, to magnify. [from 16th c.]

4. (obsolete) To pile or heap (something heavy or onerous) on or upon someone. [16th–18th c.]
   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Oxford 2009, p. 28:

     In order to lighten the crown still further, they aggravated responsibility on ministers of state.

5. (now chiefly colloquial) To exasperate; to provoke or irritate. [from 16th c.]
   • 1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa:

     If both were to aggravate her parents, as my brother and sister do mine.

   • 1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 85:

     Ben Bella was aggravated by having to express himself in French because the Egyptians were unable to understand his Arabic.

Usage notes

Although the meaning "to exasperate, to annoy" has been in continuous usage since the 16th century, a large number of usage mavens have contested it since the 1870s. Opinions have swayed from this proscription since 1965, but it still garners disapproval in Garner's Modern American Usage (2009), at least for formal writing.

Synonyms

• (to make worse): heighten, intensify, increase, magnify, exaggerate, exacerbate
• (to exasperate): provoke, irritate, exasperate
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Antonyms

• (to make worse): alleviate, mitigate

Related terms

• aggravation

Translations

Further reading

• aggravate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• aggravate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Italian

Verb

aggravate

1. second-person plural present indicative of aggravare
2. second-person plural imperative of aggravare
3. feminine plural of aggravato

Latin

Verb

aggrav?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of aggrav?

English

Etymology

From Middle English augmenten, from Middle French augmenter, from Old French augmenter, from Late Latin augmentare (“to increase”), from Latin augmentum (“an increase, growth”), from augere (“to increase”).

Pronunciation

• Verb:
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /????m?nt/
  • (US) IPA^(key): /???m?nt/
  • Rhymes: -?nt
• Noun:
  • (UK) IPA^(key): /????m?nt/
  • (US) IPA^(key): /???m?nt/
• Hyphenation: aug?ment

Verb

augment (third-person singular simple present augments, present participle augmenting, simple past and past participle augmented)

1. (transitive) To increase; to make larger or supplement.

   The money from renting out a spare room can augment a salary.

2. (intransitive, reflexive) To grow; to increase; to become greater.
3. (music) To slow the tempo or meter, e.g. for a dramatic or stately passage.
4. (music) To increase an interval, especially the largest interval in a triad, by a half step (chromatic semitone).
5. (grammar, transitive) To add an augment to.

Translations

References

• John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) , “augment”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?ISBN

Noun

augment (plural augments)

1. (grammar) In some Indo-European languages, a prefix e- (a- in Sanskrit) indicating a past tense of a verb.
2. (grammar) In some Bantu languages, an additional vowel prepended to the noun prefix.
3. An increase.

Derived terms

• augmentless

Related terms

Translations

Further reading

• augment in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• augment in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• augment at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• mutagen, negatum

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin augmentum.

Noun

augment m (plural augments)

1. increase, rise, rising

Related terms

• augmentar

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin augmentum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /o?.m??/

Noun

augment m (plural augments)

1. (medieval law) part of the estates which the widow could inherit
   • Est aussi conclud et accordé qu'au lieu de douaire dont l'on a accoustumé d'user en France, ladite dame Elisabeth aura pour augment le dot dudit mariage selon l'usage des pais du roy d'Espagne, 166,666 escus d'or sol deux tiers. (marriage contract of the prince of Spain and Ms Elisabeth of France) note: this quote is in Middle French.
2. (grammar) augment

   L'augment syllabique consiste en l’addition d’une syllabe ; l'augment temporel, dans le changement d’une brève en longue.

Related terms

• augmenter

Further reading

• “augment” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).