different between annoy vs rankle

English

Etymology

From Middle English annoien, anoien, enoien, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman anuier, Old French enuier (“to molest, harm, tire”), from Late Latin inodi? (“cause aversion, make hateful”, verb), from the phrase in odi? (“hated”), from Latin odium (“hatred”). Doublet of ennui. Displaced native Middle English grillen (“to annoy, irritate”), from Old English grillan (see grill).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n??/
• Rhymes: -??

Verb

annoy (third-person singular simple present annoys, present participle annoying, simple past and past participle annoyed)

1. (transitive) To disturb or irritate, especially by continued or repeated acts; to bother with unpleasant deeds.
   • 1691, Matthew Prior, Pastoral to Dr. Turner, Bishop of Ely

     Say, what can more our tortured souls annoy / Than to behold, admire, and lose our joy?

2. (intransitive) To do something to upset or anger someone; to be troublesome.
3. (transitive) To molest; to harm; to injure.

   to annoy an army by impeding its march, or by a cannonade

   • tapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-coloured, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them

Synonyms

• (to disturb or irritate) bother, bug, hassle, irritate, pester, nag, irk
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Antonyms

• please
• See also Thesaurus:annoy

Related terms

Translations

Noun

annoy (plural annoys)

1. (now rare, literary) A feeling of discomfort or vexation caused by what one dislikes.
   • 1532 (first printing), Geoffrey Chaucer, The Romaunt of the Rose:

     I merveyle me wonder faste / How ony man may lyve or laste / In such peyne and such brennyng, / [...] In such annoy contynuely.

   • c. 1610, John Fletcher, “Sleep”:

     We that suffer long annoy / Are contented with a thought / Through an idle fancy wrought: / O let my joys have some abiding!
2. (now rare, literary) That which causes such a feeling.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, King Rchard III, IV.2:

     Sleepe in Peace, and wake in Ioy, / Good Angels guard thee from the Boares annoy [...].

   • 1872, Robert Browning, "Fifine at the Fair, V:

     The home far and away, the distance where lives joy, / The cure, at once and ever, of world and world's annoy [...].

Synonyms

• (both senses) annoyance

Translations

References

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

Anagrams

• Yonan, anyon, noyan, yanno

English

Etymology

From Middle English ranklen, ranclen, from Old French rancler, räoncler, draoncler (“to ulcerate, to form a boil”), from Old French draoncle (“a boil”), from Latin dracunculus (“little serpent”), diminutive of Latin drac? (“serpent, dragon”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /??æ?.k?l/
• Rhymes: -æ?k?l

Noun

rankle (plural rankles)

1. A festering, embittering object or condition — either mental, or a physical sore or ulcer (rare).
   • 1795, James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury

     To this the Prince appeared to acquiesce; but I saw it did not please, and left a rankle in his mind.

Verb

rankle (third-person singular simple present rankles, present participle rankling, simple past and past participle rankled)

1. (transitive or intransitive) To cause irritation or deep bitterness.
   • 1890 — Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, chapter IX

     The close proximity of the two countries, the relative positions of their ports, made the naval situation particularly strong; and the alliance which was dictated by sound policy, by family ties, and by just fear of England's sea power, was further assured to France by recent and still existing injuries that must continue to rankle with Spain. Gibraltar, Minorca, and Florida were still in the hands of England; no Spaniard could be easy till this reproach was wiped out.

   • 1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter XX, [2]

     I stood trembling with agony for the spear was rankling in the wound.
2. (intransitive) To fester.

   a splinter rankles in the flesh

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book I, Canto X

     But yet the cause and root of all his ill,
     Inward corruption and infected sin,
     Not purg'd nor heald, behind remained still,
     And festring sore did rankle yet within […]

   • 1707, Nicholas Rowe, The Royal Convert

     a malady that burns and rankles inward

   • 1796, Edmund Burke, a letter to a noble lord

     This would have left a rankling wound in the hearts of the people.

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, chapter XIV

     You are beside him, sleeping and waking. You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart!

   • 1855, Robert Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”, XXVI:

     Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim, / Now patches where some leanness of the soil's / Broke into moss or substances like boils;

Synonyms

• (to cause irritation): embitter, irritate
• (to fester): fester

Translations

References

Anagrams

• KERNAL, Karlen, lanker