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Exasperating   Listen
adjective
exasperating  adj.  
1.
Extremely annoying or displeasing.
Synonyms: annoying, infuriating, maddening, vexing.
2.
Same as exacerbating.
Synonyms: aggravating, exacerbating.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Exasperating" Quotes from Famous Books



... collected was detained by contrary winds. Ralegh boasted to Cecil that he was indifferent to good fortune or adversity. But in another letter he confessed: 'This wind breaks my heart.' The delay was the more exasperating that other ships had run out, 'bound to the wars, a multitude going for the Indies.' He was afraid the chiefest places of his enterprise might be attempted, and he should be undone. Others would reap no advantage; for he knew 'they would be beaten, ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... the horse drank—wherefore, then, the reference to the intoxing bowl? It does seem to me that if Mr. Bloke had let the intoxicating bowl alone himself, he never would get into so much trouble about this exasperating imaginary accident. I have read this absurd item over and over again, with all its insinuating plausibility, until my head swims; but I can make neither head nor tail of it. There certainly seems to have been ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... resources for the purposes of the war has been hampered by the tricks, the failures to understand, and the almost instinctive disloyalties of private owners. The raising of rents in Glasgow drove the infuriated workmen of the Clyde district into an unwilling strike. It was an exasperating piece of private selfishness, quite typical of the individualistic state of mind, and the failure to anticipate or arrest it on the part of the Government was a worse failure than Suvla Bay. And everywhere the officials of the Ministry ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... chapel on the personality of God, which he sent with a friendly note to Mr. Emerson. The gay and Skimpolesque reply of the sage is an illustration of that flippancy with which he chose to toy in a literary way with momentous questions, and which was so exasperating to the earnest men of positive religious convictions with whom he had been associated in ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... largely by the exercise of the most trying—and, to those who do not possess it, the most exasperating—of all the virtues: Patience. Patience which, moreover, was coupled with a rare sense of homely humor. When pettifogging scandal-mongers sneaked up to him with tales that Grant, his most successful ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces

... benefit, Lucy was in a most exasperating mood, Christie in a very indignant one, and as they entered their dressing-room they looked as if they might have played the Rival Queens with great effect. Lucy offered no help and Christie asked none, but putting her vexation resolutely out of sight fixed her mind ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... more rarely, by intellectual understanding. But never bridged, I think, between two persons strongly masculine and feminine respectively, by an instinctive sympathy. To each, the other's way of life must always be mysterious, and at times exasperating or a ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... exasperating composure; "but a brave and illustrious Indian chief. A nobler looking man I have never laid my eyes upon. You could walk under ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins

... nothing more exasperating to a hostess than to have her guests come to her home too early. It is bad enough to wait a meal for a belated guest, but to have some critical woman casually stroll in before one is dressed, or has put the final touches—so ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... passing, as becomes a poor cabinet courier bearing despatches from General Massena to the citizen First Consul; but it seemed to me you were a fine lot of victims! Only, my poor friends, you will have to bid farewell to all that for the present; disagreeable, unlucky, exasperating, no doubt, but the House ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... glued to the periscope of his turret the India-rubber Man was fidgeting and swearing softly under his breath at the exasperating treachery of the fog. The great guns under his control roared at intervals, but before the effect of the shell-burst could be observed the enemy would be swallowed from sight. Once, at the commencement of the action, he thought of Betty; he thought of her ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... and sufferings which he had undergone. The close coupling-together, in this line, of the names of Cain and Christ, was not likely to conciliate antagonists; and indeed one may safely surmise that it was done by Shelley more for the rather wanton purpose of exasperating them than with any other object.—In this stanza Urania ...
— Adonais • Shelley

... a cookery book. It makes no attempt to replace a good one; it is rather an effort to fill up the gap between you and your household oracle, whether she be one of those exasperating old friends who maddened our mother with their vagueness, or the newer and better lights of our own generation, the latest and best of all being a lady as well known for her novels as for her works on domestic ...
— Culture and Cooking - Art in the Kitchen • Catherine Owen

... agreed. That was the exasperating thing. Always hard to believe, perhaps, until after all the cries of wolf the wolf came; until after nineteen harmless flares the twentieth revealed to the watching enemy the figure of a man above the wheat, when a crackling chorus of bullets would suddenly break the silence of night by concentrating ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... that seemed interminable, for they were drenched through, and tired, and were longing for any cover out of the wet. Sounds of shuffling were heard in front, and at last they found themselves on the move again. Another fifty yards, as far as a gate in a wall, and then they stuck again. More weary, exasperating minutes; then at last the bedraggled figure of the Captain loomed ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... that his son might attain such a distinguished position, M. Violette's father, a watch-maker in Chartres, had sacrificed everything, and died penniless. The Silvio Pellico official, during these exasperating and tiresome hours, sometimes regretted not having simply succeeded his father. He could see himself, in imagination, in the light little shop near the cathedral, with a magnifying-glass fixed in his eye, ready ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... this night Lady Garvington was particularly exasperating, for she constantly asked questions which the husband did not feel inclined to answer. Having heard that Lambert was in the village, she wished to know why he had not been asked to stay at The Manor, and defended the young man ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

... incident illustrates nearly everything that makes the adolescent so puzzling and so exasperating to older people. ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg

... unprofessional readers the idea I wish to convey, when I say that the entire system seems to me not merely to have been poisoned, but saturated with poison. Had some virus been transfused into the blood, which carried with it to every nerve of sensation a sense of painful, exasperating unnaturalness, the feeling would not, I imagine, be unlike what I am ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day

... towards the former as brothers, towards the latter as foes. This it was that led the Pistojans to come voluntarily under our authority while the others have done and do all in their power to escape it. For there seems no reason to doubt, that if Florence, instead of exasperating these neighbours of hers, had sought to win them over, either by entering into league with them or by lending them assistance, she would at this hour have been mistress of Tuscany. Not that I would be understood to maintain that recourse is never to be had to force and to arms, but that these ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... torches blazing here was an exasperating spectacle to Ernst Ortlieb, who with wise caution and love of order insisted that nothing but lanterns should be used to light his house, which contained inflammable wares of great value; but other things disturbed his composure, already wavering, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... must have been more than one," drawled the duck man with exasperating slowness. "Foster was down in the first, but that was burned. I don't think he ever saw the others, but he knew he wasn't ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele

... His daughter refrained from combatting him openly, but he divined and resented her unexpressed opposition. Her attitude was one of finality; her silence indicated an indifference to his opinions more exasperating than words. It was the young astronomer, he reflected, who had helped to crystallise her strange views. His lurking fear that she might one day marry and leave him was aroused at the thought, and his heart contracted with jealousy. She possessed in his eyes something of the sanctity ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... tied loosely about his neck; but the eyeglasses and the flashing eyes behind them, the pleasant smile and the hearty grasp of hand remained. There was the same eagerness to hear from the world of politics, and the same frank willingness to answer all questions propounded. The slow, exasperating drawl and the unique accent that the New Yorker feels he must use when visiting a less blessed portion of civilization have disappeared, and in their place is a nervous, energetic manner of talking with the flat accent of the ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... great and arduous search; one that was infinitely difficult and exasperating; and full of pathos to the sympathetic man who watched him in silence. Mr. Hilton could not understand his movements as he felt his way about the room, opening drawers and armoires, now and again stooping down and feeling along the floor. He did not betray his presence, however, but moved ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... more nearly than any other heavenly body. Its diameter is within 120 miles of the earth's diameter. The exasperating fact about Venus, however, is that it is shrouded in deep banks of clouds and vapors which make it impossible for us to secure any definite facts about it. The atmosphere about Venus is so dense that sunlight is reflected from the upper surface of the clouds around the planet ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper

... without waiting even a day, determined that the hostages should be slain. A rumor was set in circulation that Saladin had put to death all his Christian prisoners. This rumor was false, but it served its purpose of exasperating the minds of the Crusaders, so as to bring the soldiers up well to the necessary pitch of ferocity for executing so terrible a work. The slaughter of five thousand defenseless and unresisting men, in cold blood, is a very hard work for even soldiers to perform, ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... she turned and looked at him fully. The green eyes were instantly upon her, alert and critical, holding that gleam of satirical humour that she invariably found so exasperating. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... covets. The Ohio is here about half-a-mile wide, but high-pitched voices of people on the opposite bank are plainly heard across the smooth sounding-board; and in the quiet evening air comes to us the "chuck-chuck" of oars nearly a mile away. Following a torrid afternoon, with exasperating headwinds, this cool, fresh atmosphere, in the long twilight, is inspiring. Overhead is the slender streak of the moon's first quarter, its reflection shimmering in the broad and placid stream rushing noiselessly by us to the sea. In blissful content we sit upon the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... really taking its time about it. All the same, he noticed some good symptoms, for bankruptcy was increasing on all sides—in science, politics, literature, and even art. Liberty was already dead. Democracy, by exasperating ambitious instincts and setting classes in conflict for power, was rapidly leading to a social collapse. Only the poor still had large families; the elite, the people of wealth and intelligence, had fewer and fewer children, so that, before final ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola

... fond of pointing him out as a specimen of the healthy climate, but this was rather a flight of fancy, as Slivers was one of those exasperating individuals who, if they lived in a swamp or a desert, would still continue to feel their digestions good ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume

... preoccupation. Fanny alone was the ghost of the feast. Her features never relaxed from their settled gloom. She played at hap-hazard, listlessly throwing down the cards or letting them fall from her hands, vaguely asking what were trumps at inopportune moments; showing that inattentiveness so exasperating to an eager player and which oftener than once drew a sharp ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... that was mine to fulfil the destiny of my sex and at the same time become the wife of the man she had long wished me to marry. The power of money was dear to her. She understood it well, and my failure to appreciate it properly was peculiarly exasperating to her. Discussion was useless. It never got farther than where it started. If I said that which I wanted much to say, it would merely mean hearing again what I did not want to hear. Concerning the pursuit of a happy livelihood we were ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher

... response was a black scowl and a savage glance, at which Louise retreated with a shrug of her shoulders and an exasperating wink and giggle. ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston

... even by those unacquainted with Ireland; that a process for healing ancient wounds has been turned into a process for exasperating future conflicts. A blister has been substituted for a poultice on the sores of centuries. Existing agreements are blocked. Future agreements—for this is their appropriate, if cynical—designation, are relegated to a future which few can foresee. Landlords ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... called, 'what's the matter now?' in that bland, exasperating tone of his,—that injured, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... a time," replied Aunt Isobel with an exasperating blandness, which fortunately stimulated ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... She is a most secretive person, twiddles us all round her fingers and never lets us know anything until it's done. It is most exasperating. Oh, I say, Kate," added Harry, suddenly, "would you mind dropping me at the ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... this insanity. Too much talk about la revanche! The very idea of worrying for forty-four years over the two lost provinces when the nation was mistress of enormous and undeveloped lands in other countries! . . . Now they were going to pay the penalty for such exasperating ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... go abroad, your Wolseley valise, containing this"—he swept his hand round the crowded hut—"this military museum, will be handed to the Quartermaster. He is a man of singularly rigid mind, with an exasperating habit of interpreting rules and regulations quite literally. If you persist in this scheme of asking him to pass half a ton of assorted lumber as a package weighing thirty-five pounds, he will cast you forth and remain your enemy for life. And personally," concluded Wagstaffe, ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... 'to make the Bishop,' that is to say, to appoint to the see of Salisbury, now vacant, a man who would consent to the alienation of such rich Church lands as the manors of Sherborne and Yetminster. John Meeres, afterwards so determined and exasperating an enemy of Raleigh's, was now[5] appointed his bailiff, and Adrian Gilbert a sort of ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... of secrecy another event, of a nature highly exasperating to the Swiss, is said to have happened. It is true that modern critics declare the story of this event to be solely a legend and that nothing of the kind ever took place. However that be, it has ever since remained one of the most attractive of popular tales, and the verdict of the critics ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris

... of the authority of the laws, had their hearty concurrence; and Lord Barrington returned thanks to the officers and men employed in this service, and directed that the crown lawyers should defend the soldiers under prosecution. This had the effect of exasperating the populace still more. They saw that the soldiers would be acquitted—which was actually the case, and rewarded likewise—and the exploit was named by the unenviable denomination of "The Massacre ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... that a man returning from such a morning's work as had been Blake's could be excused from duty the rest of the day. He and his little party had had a spirited running fight of several hours with an evasive and most exasperating trio of warriors, better mounted for swift work than were the troopers. He had managed eventually to bring down one of the Indians who lingered a little too long within short range of the carbines, but it was the pony, not the rider, that they killed. Meanwhile other Indians ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... hung there. He pulled a silver case from his pocket, selected a cigarette with care and lit it with deliberation. He had learned everything that he wanted to know; the conversation was beginning to grow tiresome; and he found the boy's careless self-confidence increasingly exasperating. ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... cannibals had drawn nearer to the Black Bear, pressing forward from both banks in canoes and pounding at the panels with their arrows. It seemed only a question of time when they would board the craft and force the panels. Their shouts of victory were shrill and exasperating. ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson

... Denver had won Charley in a crap game at Crystal City; and thereafter found him both an inseparable companion and exasperating responsibility. He had tried every available means to get rid of Charley, but without success. Either direct sale or horse-trade proved useless. Charley liked Denver too well to put up with less interesting owners so Charley ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen

... four poor persons daily, and wait upon them themselves; and these poor persons were to have bread and meat or fish, with half a flagon of ale, and were to have new tunics and new russet hoods every year. All this was in addition to various heavy fines. The money part must have been the least exasperating: but it might have been amusing to choose the ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... on it knew that there was a five-year-old making a trip all by himself. Of course, he was not to be bothered, but everybody wanted to talk to him, to ask him how he was, to chatter endlessly at him. Jimmy did not want to talk. His experience in addressing adults was exasperating. That he spoke lucid English instead of babygab did not compel a rational response. Those who heard him speak made over him with the same effusive superiority that they used in applauding a golden-haired ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... I found Natalie in a pleasant morning-room to which I was directed. She wore her most extreme—and, in consequence, most exasperating—rational costume. When I entered the room she pushed a chair towards me, in a way that suggested Miss Metford's worst manner, and lit a cigarette, for the express purpose, I felt, of ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... into jeering at them; throughout the year Mark and she had been scarcely polite to each other even in public. The Rector and Miriam probably excused Mark's rudeness whenever he let himself give way to it, because their sister did not spare either of them, and they were made aware with exasperating insistence of the dullness of the country and of the dreariness of everybody who lived in the neighbourhood. Yet, Mark could never achieve that indifference to her attitude either toward himself or toward other people that he wished to achieve. It was odd that this evening he ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... controversial sword. He convicted Sheridan of falsehood, Sherman of barbarism, Grant of inefficiency. He was aggressive, arrogant, tyrannical, honorable, truthful, courageous—skillful soldier, a faithful friend and one of the most exasperating of men Duty was his religion, and like the Moslem he proselyted with the sword. His missionary efforts were directed chiefly against the spiritual darkness of his superiors in rank, though he would turn aside from pursuit of his erring commander to set a chicken-thieving orderly astride a wooden ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... been doing,' interposed Lavvy, over the maternal shoulder, 'ever since we got up this morning. It's all very well to laugh, Bella, but anything more exasperating it is impossible ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... furnishing and decoration. No signs of life were visible, the window into the ticket office being closed, while from somewhere within the little inclosure, a telegraphic instrument clicked with a cheerful pertinacity that to Rutherford seemed simply exasperating. ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour

... understand. And she would be obliged to live somewhere. She must pretend to somebody. She wanted to go on, to see the spring. But must she always be pretending? Would it always be that... living with exasperating women who did not understand... pretending... grimacing?... Were German women the same? She wished she could tell Eve the things she was beginning to feel about women. These English girls were just the same. Millie... sweet lovely Millie.... How she wished she had never spoken to her. Never ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... events, was of an unexpected kind. The adventure had served only to make me understand Paulina's abhorrence of such experiments, and at every turn of the slight intrigue I had felt how exasperating and belittling such a relation was bound to be between two people who, had they been free, would have mated openly. And so from a brief phase of imperfect forgetting I was driven back to a deeper and more ...
— The Long Run - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... were not enough, Hood quarrelled with our military officers, with results highly exasperating to our land forces.[263] These last did not shine during the siege. True, in the sortie of 29th November they captured a battery recently erected north of Malbosquet; but, their eagerness exceeding their discipline, ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... but, then, he was unfailingly bound to come back to him. We had only to wait and catch the solid grains that now and then fell in the winnowing of that unending stream of chaff. It was a tedious and exasperating process, but it had its compensations. At times Leavitt could be as uncannily brilliant as he was dull and boresome. The conviction grew upon me that he had become a little demented, as if his brain had been tainted by the sulphurous fumes ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... of unpretending manners, polite and affable, and during the pauses of the game they call for and drink their beer in true democratic fashion. M. Forgues learns that his charge lives two leagues out of town, and, hugging his exasperating valise—which, we may here remark, was delivered safely to the charge next day—he returns in company with the captain to the steamer, where, seated on the deck, he listens with horror to the stories told by a citizen of divers murders committed in the town ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... the wheel looked silently forward, with that exasperating unconcern of any landsman's interest peculiar to marine officials. The passenger turned impatiently to ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... operatic performance, you should remain seated until the performance is concluded and the curtain falls. It is exceedingly rude and ill-bred to rise and leave the hall while the play is drawing to a close, yet this severely exasperating practice has of late been followed by many well-meaning people, who, if they were aware of the extent to which they outraged the feelings of many of the audience, and unwittingly offered an insult to the actors on the stage, ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young

... underwear kept on. The hair should be arranged simply, but not allowed to hang in a loose braid, unless you are very sure you will not see any but the patient, and even then it may be unwise, as a braid of hair has an exasperating way of slipping from its proper place (hanging down the back) and dipping into whatever you are stooping over. Dressed thus, with night shoes to protect the feet, one can lie down on a lounge and sleep very comfortably, being freed from tight clothes, and yet being entirely presentable, ...
— Making Good On Private Duty • Harriet Camp Lounsbery

... Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... well-bred courtesy carried him successfully through the difficulty; his companion Bonner was not so fortunate. Bonner's tongue was insolent, and under bad control. He replied to menace by impertinence; and on one occasion was so exasperating, that Clement threatened to burn him alive, or boil him in a caldron of lead.[610] When fairly roused, the old man was dangerous; and the future Bishop of London wrote to England in extremity of alarm. His letter has ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... Exasperating as Bill's wooden failure to play the scene in the spirit in which her imagination had conceived it was to Claire, several excuses may be offered for him: He had opened the evening with a shattering blow at his faith in woman. He had walked ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse

... imperfect recollections with the narratives of Mannering and Pleydell, that this man was the prime agent in the act of violence which tore him from his family and country, and had exposed him to so many distresses and dangers. A thousand exasperating reflections rose within his bosom; and he could hardly refrain from rushing upon Hatteraick ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... she had a shrewd suspicion that she was one of the selected number. She wished Miss Roscoe had openly given out the names, then she would have known exactly what to do in the circumstances. Could anything be more exasperating? It was impracticable for Winnie to fill the breach; with one teacher short, Miss Roscoe could not possibly spare her, especially at such a busy time as the end of the term. Gwen realized that perfectly. Lesbia—little, ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... feverish. And in the afternoon, when he was not there, she would sit in a swing, and dream, with a book on her knees, her eyes half closed, sleepy and lazily happy, mind and body hovering in the spring air. She would spend hours at the piano, with a patience exasperating to others, going over and over again scales and passages which made her turn pale and cold with emotion. She would weep when she heard Schumann's music. She felt full of pity and kindness for all creatures, and so ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... harvest bugs) are so utterly unendurable as the "little, busy, thirsty fly." It seems odd, too, as he neither stings nor bites, that he should be so objectionable; but his tickly method of walking over your nose or down your neck, and the exasperating pertinacity with which he refuses to take "no" for an answer when you flick him delicately with a handkerchief, but "cuts" and comes again, maddens you until you rise, bloody-minded in your wrath, and, seizing ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... would have added that he was a votary of the kultur of his race. His ideal, I suppose, was more the Renaissance virtu than our milk-and-water virtue. He made me feel that I was a worm. In short, he was a very interesting, provocative and exasperating humbug, and his very existence seemed to me sufficient reason for turning Aliens into a book which would shed a flickering light upon the fascinating problem of ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... most exasperating and human things about a gasolene-engine. It is efficient, but not thoroughly dependable. The best of them are liable to break down at the most needed moment, due to a hundred causes outside of the control of a mechanic or pilot. Care and rigid inspection ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser

... Here they suffered an exasperating delay. It appeared that the gates were shut at sundown, in deference to custom immemorial. Between that hour and sunrise none were permitted to pass either in or out without the express sanction of the State. The commander of the guard ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

... her ignorance she shared in some of the girl's prejudices against the North, but not in her antipathy. The thought that Clancy had waned in his regard or that he could even think of a Northern girl after having "kep' company" with Mara, had been exasperating, but now Aun' Sheba began to suspect that the estrangement was not wholly his fault. "She set agin him by his gwine Norf an' his habin' to do wid de folks dat she an' ole Missus hates. Doan see why he is mad at me 'bout it. ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe

... and snapped vigorously. It was not her fault, she reflected. No one could be expected to be patient if other people would insist on being so horrid and exasperating! ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... old knave spoke! What pleasure he seemed to take in the suspense he purposely made as exasperating as possible! ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... this time become an exasperating and picturesque individual, and the editorial staff was divided in its opinion concerning him. It was argued on one hand that as the man had never sent us a real address, his object must be to gain a literary reputation at the expense of ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... rather enjoyed referring to it with tolerant regret as being a bad one and beyond his control—with a manner which suggested that the attribute was the inevitable result of strength of character and masculine spirit. The luxury of giving way to it was a great one, and it was exasperating as he walked about with this handsome girl to find himself beginning to suspect that, where she was concerned, some self-control might be necessary. He was led to this thought because the things he took in on all sides could only have been achieved by a person whose mind was a steadily-balanced thing. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... him in amazement. Was this the Derry whose supply of cheerfulness had seemed inexhaustible? Whose persistent optimism had been at times exasperating to ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey

... unmanageable quantities of clothing of all kinds, far, far more than any woman without a maid could take care of. The fact that she had not had a maid was in part responsible for this superfluity. She had neither the time nor the patience for making or for directing the thousand exasperating little repairs that are necessary if a woman with a small wardrobe is always to look well. So, whenever repairs were necessary, she bought instead; and as she always kept herself fresh and perfect to the smallest detail she had to buy profusely. ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... and assist at the ceremony of dawn; it is well if for no other purpose than to disarm the intolerance of the professional early riser who, were he in a state of perfect health, would not be the wandering victim of insomnia, and boast of it. There are few small things more exasperating than this early bird with the worm of ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... bells, making sentences and burdens of songs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how many sick people it might be the death of in the course of the year. As the hour approached, its changes of measure made it more and more exasperating. At the quarter, it went off into a condition of deadly-lively importunity, urging the populace in a voluble manner to Come to church, Come to church, Come to church! At the ten minutes, it became aware that the congregation ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... it to him. It irritated me to see how his wife had subdued her personality to his, she who was of so tender and delicate a fibre, and who more than anyone wanted cherishing, instead of being ridden down, in that debonair, rough-shod way of his, that, although often exasperating, still had something attractive about it. She and I used to discuss it sometimes, in the evenings, when he was kept out late at his job—it's an uncertain business, reporting—we used to discuss it with the tolerance of fond people, and smile over his weaknesses, and say that he was ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West

... had been clouded by an almost entire absence of paternal favor, and wholly free from maternal care—the mother's absence having been secured by the father, by a lettre de cachet. In addition, that boyhood had been irritated and embittered by a continuous and exasperating development of his natural personal disfigurement. His enormous head grew less in harmony with his torso, his lips and nose became thick and heavy, great moles revealed themselves upon his cheeks, and in every way, physically, his growth was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... for explanations as to labour not being forthcoming. These requests had usually to be met by lengthy and involved "returns" which very few people understood and which served no useful purpose except to temporarily alleviate the strain. As a rule the exasperating situation was restored next day. Nor was the necessity for the work at first apparent to the men. They thought they came to fight with the bullet and bayonet only. But enlightenment came and one experienced miner voiced it, after ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... of Achievement' is one of those exasperating books which you feel you ought to present to your young friends, yet find yourself unwilling to part with." WILLIAM B. WARREN, Former President ...
— An Iron Will • Orison Swett Marden

... that he knew as friends, the savage grated his teeth together like rasps of iron, and swallowed his passion for want of a victim on whom to vent it. This exhibition of anger was noted by all present; and from an apprehension of exasperating a temper that was already chafed nearly to madness, several minutes were suffered to pass before another word was uttered. When, however, suitable time had elapsed, the oldest ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... the concluding words with exasperating slowness. Iris, astounded by the stipulation, dropped her locket and leaned forward into the red light of the log fire. The sailor's quick eye caught the glitter ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... identification marks were removed, as existing manuscripts show. Sometimes passages were erased from a borrowed book because the borrower considered them heretical. Ancient borrowers were also addicted to one of the most exasperating of modern literary crimes, the scribbling of their own opinions on the margins of borrowed books. Valuable books were kept chained to the desks which were provided for those who had occasion to consult ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton

... goes on day after day, that Jeanne, becoming at moments impatient, sometimes gives a rough answer, and at other times plays a little with her questioner as if in contempt. "By the Blessed Mary, I know not!" is evidently an outburst of impatience at the exhausting, exasperating folly of some of these questions, and this will be further visible in future sittings. It seems very likely that the reference to Poitiers, which was an excellent suggestion, commending itself to ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant

... a little impatient:—"Haul away, men! Lay back on that rope!" And we did lay back on the rope with great alacrity. As if nothing had happened, the chief mate went on trimming the yards with his usual and exasperating fastidiousness. We didn't at the time see anything of Donkin, and did not care. Had the chief officer thrown him overboard, no man would have said as much as "Hallo! he's gone!" But, in truth, no great harm was done—even if ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... his temper, and in more in stances than one he has not been allowed to have his own way. To be thwarted in this reasonable desire was always very injurious to the old gentleman; and resistance became doubly exasperating when gout, age, loneliness, and the force of many disappointments combined to weigh him down. His stiff black hair began to grow quite white soon after his son's death; his-face grew redder; his hands trembled more and more as he poured out his glass of port wine. He led his clerks a dire ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... been counterfeited up to that day, concerning the violence and lust of Sextus Tarquin, the horrid violation of Lucretia and her lamentable death, the bereavement of Tricipitinus, to whom the cause of his daughter's death was more exasperating and deplorable than the death itself. To this was added the haughty insolence of the king himself, and the sufferings and toils of the people, buried in the earth in cleansing sinks and sewers; that the Romans, the conquerors ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... that makes the scrubby pastures and uplands tuneful from early morning until after sunset, flies away with exasperating shyness as you approach. Alighting on a convenient branch, he lures you on with his clear, sweet song. Follow him, and he only hops about from bush to bush, farther and farther away, singing as he goes a variety of strains, which is one of the bird's peculiarities. The song not ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... was out of the question for one of us to run ahead of the team simply to please these leader-perverts, and the whip had to be wielded heavily on Jimmy's back ere he could be induced to fill his proper office—and then he did it ill, with constant exasperating stoppings and lookings-back. At Solomon's I met a man who had spent some years with Peary in his arctic explorations, and I sat up far into the night drawing interesting narratives out of him. So far as Topkok we were still retracing our steps, but once over the great bluff, which gave no view ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck

... like this better," Sicardot remarked, as he observed the flight of the other adherents. "Those cowards were exasperating me at last. For more than two years they've been speaking of shooting all the Republicans in the province, and to-day they wouldn't even fire a ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola

... behind the house, and take up his rifle to put in the rest of the day snaking through the breathless fifteen foot cover, only to have a glimpse of the buck at last dashing back the late light from glittering antlers as he bounded up inaccessible rocky stairs. This was the more exasperating since Greenhow had promised the antlers to the ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy

... There is nothing more exasperating to the mind of a man than to find all his kindness and favour slighted; neither is the Lord Jesus so provoked with anything, as when sinners abuse his means of grace; if it be barren and fruitless under my gospel; if it turn my grace into wantonness, if after digging and dunging, and waiting, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... precocious she-hypocrite. The second, a "Mariee," with a long white veil, kneeling at a prie-dieu in her chamber, holding her hands plastered together, finger to finger, and showing the whites of her eyes in a most exasperating manner. The third, a "Jeune Mere," hanging disconsolate over a clayey and puffy baby with a face like an unwholesome full moon. The fourth, a "Veuve," being a black woman, holding by the hand a black little girl, and the twain studiously ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... you men are exasperating. No one can eradicate your jealousy! That makes an unconstrained intercourse impossible! But what is to be done? Paul is my husband, not you. And so I am compelled ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... at Andover, where certain members of his class were accustomed to meet together to criticize each other. The person to suffer criticism sits in silence, while the rest of the company, each in turn, tell him his faults, with, I judge, an astonishing and often exasperating plainness of speech. Here is the account given ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... through the morning, and still more so in the afternoon. He saw her young and graceful back as she descended from the carriage, severely ignoring him, and recalled a glimpse he had of her face, bright and serene, as his train ran out of Wimbledon. He recalled with exasperating perplexity her clear, matter-of-fact tone as she talked about love-making being unconvincing. He was really very proud of her, and extraordinarily angry and resentful at the innocent and audacious self-reliance that seemed to intimate her sense of absolute independence of him, her absolute ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... words, he expected to "be gently dropped without the parade of a resignation." In his distaste at separation from his wife, the desire to abandon public life grew upon him. But personal abuse of him in the newspapers exasperating his friends, he was taken up again in October, and he arrived on the scene, he says, too late to prevent it. He had no hope, however, of success, and was resolved to resign a seat to which he was in every way indifferent. "Ambition, love of power," he wrote to his wife ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... always lived and acted; to suggest something of its fragmentary and subjective character. We turn back therefore to a further examination of the truism—so obvious to those who are philosophers, so exasperating to those who are not—that man dwells, under normal conditions, in a world of imagination rather than a world of facts; that the universe in which he lives and at which he looks is but a construction which the mind has made ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill

... 27th, to receive kindly welcome from the agent, Mr. Swaffield. Again at Cartwright we had some difficulty in getting dogs, and it was not until Friday morning that we could push on. These delays were exasperating, for I was bent on catching the steamer that Dr. Macpherson informed me in his letter was due at ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace

... prevented by natural complacence from shouting: "Oh, drat ye! and your ring too." Mrs. Berry had acted conspicuously in fifteen marriages, by banns, and by licence, and to have such an obvious requisite dinned in her ears was exasperating. They could not have contracted alliance with an auxiliary more invaluable, an authority so profound; and they acknowledged it to themselves. The hero marched like an automaton at her bidding; Lieutenant Thompson was rejoiced to perform services ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... He looked from the pen to the man's leveled pistol. Then he reluctantly took the pen. The half-breed promptly dictated, and the other wrote. The compulsion was exasperating, and the great man scrawled with all the pettishness of ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... the suppression of the revolt, or even the three years that had passed since the completion of Aquillius's organisation, no revenues had been raised by Rome from her new subjects for administrative purposes. They probably had been raised, but in a manner exasperating because irregular. What was needed was a methodical system, which should abolish at once the fiction of "freedom" and the reality of the exactions meted out at the caprice of the governor of the moment. Such a system was supplied by Gracchus, ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... suffer in a year or two. Came out in her narrative, link by link, the gentle delicious complacency of the first period, the chill airs that soon ruffled it, the glowing hopes, the misgivings that dashed them; then the diminution of confidence, more complexing and exasperating than its utter loss; the alternations of joy and doubt, the fever and the ague of the wounded spirit; then the gusts of hatred followed by deeper love; later still, the periodical irritation at hopes long deferred, ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... think a whiff of the Jersey ferry would be as flagons of cod-liver oil to me. Are the trees still green in Madison Square, or have they grown brown and dusty? Does the chaste Diana still keep her vows through all the exasperating changes of weather? Who has your brother's old studio now, and what misguided aspirants practise their scales in the rookeries about Carnegie Hall? What do people go to see at the theatres, and what do they eat and drink in the world nowadays? Oh, let me die in Harlem!" she ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather

... don't mean the boys that get to go to everything that comes along, and that have pennies to spend for candy, and all like that, whenever they ask for it. I mean the regular, proper, natural boys, that used to be "Back Home," boys whose daddies tormented them with: "Well, we Il see—" that's so exasperating!—or, "I wish you wouldn't tease, when you know we can't spare the money just at present." A perfectly foolish answer, that last. They had money to fritter away at the grocery, and the butcher-shop, and the dry-goods store, but when it came to a necessity of life, ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... unknown before. Man's blended duty and interest, in such a case, are to try to see the interior beauty and essential kindness of his fate, to adorn it and embrace it, fomenting his resignation with the sweet lotions of faith and peace, not exasperating his wounds with the angry pungents of suspicion, alarm, and complaint. At the worst, amidst all our personal disappointments, losses, and decay, "the view of the great universal whole of nature," as Humboldt says, "is reassuring and consolatory." If the boon of a future immortality be not ours, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... you very exasperating," Rosina exclaimed, her cheeks becoming hotly pink; "you amuse yourself in a way that transcends politeness. I honestly think that you are very rude indeed, and I am ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... learnt to adopt from their Oriental neighbours as protections against these enemies, being continually disarranged to give the Prince drink or to put cool applications to his wound, the winged foes were sure to enter, and with their exasperating hum further destroy all chance of rest. The Prince had not slept since he had been wounded, and was well-nigh distraught with wakefulness, and with the continual suffering, which was only diminished at the first moment that a cold lotion touched his arm. The Hospitaliers had sent in some ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... them from any other armed horse-stealers and "bush-whackers." We were, however, made unpleasantly certain of the fact that in every neighborhood where secession sentiments were rife, our messengers were waylaid and killed, small parties were ambushed, and all the exasperating forms of guerilla warfare were abundant. Besides all this, the Confederate authorities assumed to call out the militia of counties into which they were intending to make an expedition, so that they might have the temporary co-operation of local troops. They claimed ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... no, not even any housecleaning to do before you depart—just move and nothing more. Just dump a little outfit into a canoe and then paddle away from all your tiresome environment, and travel wherever your heart dictates, and then settle down where not even an exasperating neighbour could find you. What would you give to live ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming

... as well as an exceedingly severe headache would permit, to recall the salient events of the previous night. At present his memories refused to solidify. They poured about in his brain in a fluid and formless condition, exasperating to one who sought for ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... dusky girls beckoned him to come to them. Some happy strain they sang, like the "Whist! here, you darling boy!" so often heard at Brest. But seductive as was their country, their call was imperious and exasperating, making his very flesh shudder. Their perfect bosoms rose and fell under transparent muslin, in which they were solely draped; they were glowing and polished as in bronze statues. Hesitating, fascinated by them, he wavered about, following them; but the boatswain's sharp shrill whistle ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti

... attack of fever. My work necessitated my being in camp for some months between Pakpattan and Mubarakpur—a desolate sandy stretch of country as every one who has had the misfortune to go there may know. My coolies were neither more nor less exasperating than other gangs, and my work demanded sufficient attention to keep me from moping, had I been inclined ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... President is, therefore, only the chairman of an executive board, and presents a complete contrast to the President of the United States, who is virtually a monarch, elected for a short reign. Sir Henry Maine says in his book on "Popular Government," that somewhat exasperating but always instructive arraignment of democracy: "On the face of the Constitution of the United States, the resemblance of the President of the United States to the European king, and especially to the King of Great Britain, ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... own slight confusion, or it may have been something exasperating in Lady Channice's silence, that had precipitated Mrs. Grey upon this speech, but, when she had made it, she became very red and wondered whether she had gone too far. Mrs. Grey was prepared to go far. If people evaded her, and showed an unwillingness to let her be kind ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... - Nothing but the number of people and the noise they made, that led them to apprehend he was in danger - Nothing but the talk, that induc'd them to think he would fire: Others indeed saw snow balls, and other things thrown at him, after he presented his gun, and wav'd it in an exasperating manner, and threatened to fire: - One in particular, declared, that he saw balls of ice thrown, large & hard enough to hurt any man: It is strange, if he thought the centry in danger, that he should stand so near him, as by his own testimony it is evident he did, ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... wifely attentions ended. She remained absolutely deaf to any remark addressed to her by her husband, looking through and beyond him when he was present with a steady, unseeing gaze, which was, to say the least, exasperating. All necessary communication with him was carried on by means of the children. "Minty," she would say at the breakfast-table, "ask your pa if he wants another cup of coffee"; or at night, "Temp'unce, tell your pa that Buster has shed a shoe"; or, "Sue, does your pa know where them ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden

... so exasperating to me as the idea that the natives of this country have no sense of humor and no faculty for mirth. This phase of their character is well understood by those whose fortune or misfortune it has been to live ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... although it could boast of its greater wealth; but wealth in such a sooty atmosphere lost all attraction for Mary. Yet he quoted Limeton, and, what the Limetonians did, thought, and intended to do, and the effect of their intentions on the coming election for President, which was exasperating to Mary, who, like all loyal Mapletonians, was quite sure their own city was the brain of the State, even if Limeton did represent its wealth; so that what the former said and thought was of far more importance to the country, ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... murderer, and his thoughts when he tried him. He happens to know what such a man got by such a transaction, and it was fifteen thousand five hundred pounds, and his income is twelve thousand a year. Our bore is also great in mystery. He believes, with an exasperating appearance of profound meaning, that you saw Parkins last Sunday? - Yes, you did. - Did he say anything particular? - No, nothing particular. - Our bore is surprised at that. - Why? - Nothing. Only he understood that Parkins had come to tell you something. - What ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

... gazed up in disarray. That break resembled a walk of life—how easy to slip down, how hard to climb! Even Frank, inured as he was to strenuous toil, began to swear and wipe his sweaty brow before we had made one-tenth of the ascent. It was particularly exasperating, not to mention the danger of it, to work a few feet up a slide, and then feel it start to move. We had to climb in single file, which jeopardized the safety of those behind the leader. Sometimes we were all sliding at once, like boys ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey

... Keep that exasperating name to yourself! For ten years it has pestered my eye—and tortured my ear; till at last my very footfalls time themselves to the brain-racking rhythm of Simon Lathers!—Simon Lathers! —Simon Lathers! And now, to make its presence ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... "It's simply exasperating," she exclaimed, "to see a young fellow of his inches absorbed in American antiquities when the honor and liberty of America are at stake. Then, at times, he permits such an expression of sadness to come into his big black eyes! He is distant enough, but ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe

... "Kathleen Mavourneen," was the bugler of our Battery, and he was the heartless wretch who used to persecute us that way. To be waked up and hauled out about day dawn on a cold, wet, dismal morning, and to have to hustle out and stand shivering at roll call, was about the most exasperating item of the soldier's life. The boys had a song very expressive of a soldier's feelings when nestling in his warm blankets, he heard the malicious bray of that bugle. It went ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame

... while ordinarily, he was not one who was inclined to be querulous, still now on occasion, he could be. He began by asking questions concerning his wife's appearance—irritating little whys which are so trivial and yet so exasperating and discouraging to a woman. Why didn't she get a mauve hat nearer the shade of her dress? Why didn't she go out more? Exercise would do her good. Why didn't she do this, and why didn't she do that? He scarcely ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... to the law-courts of the State, abolishing the right of sanctuary in monasteries, and limiting the power of corporations to acquire landed property. If the Papacy would have met Victor Emmanuel in a fair spirit his Government would gladly have avoided a dangerous and exasperating struggle; but all the forces and the passions of Ultramontanism were brought to bear against the proposed reforms. The result was that the Minister, abandoned by a section of the Conservative party on whom he had relied, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... materialist thus mutually exasperating each other, and the scoffer expressing the worst of materialism, there arises a third party to occupy the middle ground between these two, the skeptic, namely. He finds both wrong by being in extremes. ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... mind. He who thus grieves will excite no sympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour." Now this is blunt, positive speech, and no one would mind it much if it were left alone by ignorant persons; but it is a trifle exasperating when Johnson's authority is brought forward at second hand in order to convince us that a poem in which many people delight is disgusting. Again, the dictator said that a passage in Congreve's "Morning ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman

... come to me for my accord: So in my court I sit all day, Giving agreeable girls away, With one for him - and one for he - And one for you - and one for ye - And one for thou - and one for thee - But never, oh never a one for me! Which is exasperating, ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... be removed without pulling the body from the head, which caused a terrible itching lasting for months. If left alone they adhered to the flesh until they swelled to the size of a musket ball, when they fell off of themselves. In the summertime gadflies were exasperating in their attacks on men and cattle. Mosquitoes were a veritable plague, and midges also, between June ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... method of procedure which proves sometimes a little exasperating to the highly strung, and I watched Mitchell's face anxiously to see how he was taking his first introduction to it. The unhappy lad had blenched visibly. He turned to me with the air of one ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse

... black glass. The roar of this huge vent was deafening and stupendous. If the reader will reflect on the wonderful hubbub that can be created even by a kitchen kettle when superheated, and on the exasperating shrieks of a steamboat's safety-valve in action, or the bellowing of a fog-horn, he may form some idea of the extent of his incapacity to conceive the thunderous roar of Krakatoa when ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... purpose, it was frankly baffled by the fact that Dante did not seem to be frightened at all, but just stood his ground and watched his adversary with a light of quiet amusement in his eyes that was very exasperating to Simone. The whole quarrel had kindled and thriven so quickly that Messer Guido, who was standing apart and talking with certain of his friends, had as yet no knowledge of it, but now I moved to him and plucked him by the sleeve ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... justice for the county, the resources of the Spring Creek men were equal to the emergency. When the commissioners came to decide on the relative merits of Springfield and another site a few miles away, they led them through brake, through brier, by mud knee-deep and by water-courses so exasperating that the wearied and baffled officials declared they would seek no further, and Springfield became the county-seat for all time; and greater destinies were in store for it through means not wholly dissimilar. ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay

... She hesitated, tingling with the old desire to hurt him, flick him in the raw, make him wince in his exasperating complacency. Then, "I've said it anyhow. I'm trying to show an interest in you—as ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... morning went slowly. Bunch and Oleson moved with exasperating deliberation and made stupid blunders. The brunt of the labor fell upon Bowers and Kate, who soon were grimy with dust and perspiration. As the sun rose higher, so did Kate's temper, and her voice grew sharper and more imperious each time she spoke to the shirkers. The ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... got to be one of the saddest and maddest fanatics that ever afflicted a family. And there were hours when, by holding up too graphic, terrific, and exasperating pictures of the veteran's past and present wickedness and impenitence, and his future retribution, in the shape of an external roasting in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone—she drove the old man half frantic with ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... old man, and, with a toss of her head, said to the little boy in a cool, exasperating tone, employing a pet name she had heard ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... experimenters, and some indescribable thing besides, for I believe even the hens crow in these days. Distracting as all this is, however, happy is the man who does not hear a goat lamenting in the night. The goat is the most exasperating of the animal creation. He cries like a deserted baby, but he does it without any regularity. One can accustom himself to any expression of suffering that is regular. The annoyance of the goat is in the dreadful waiting ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Another grievance, particularly exasperating because the government was responsible, grew in Pennsylvania out of the administration of the compulsory militia system. Service was obligatory upon all male citizens and non-attendance was punished by fine or imprisonment. The rich delinquent did ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... had snapped ominously and the harassed Bill this time threatened to kick the whole exasperating outfit to kindling wood if his heels held out long enough to ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton

... the wound which they inflict. The "punkey," or "black-fly," as it is called, is a small, black gnat, about the size of a garden ant, and the bite of the insect often results very seriously. The midget is a minute little creature, and is the most everlastingly sticky and exasperating pest in the catalogue of human torments. They fly in swarms of thousands, and go for their victim "en masse" and the face, hands and neck are soon covered as if with "hay seed." They stick where they first light, and commence ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... invention. But, instead of melting away, new obstacles kept arising at every turn. The dilatoriness of the French Government seems past all belief, and yet, in spite of his faith in the more expeditious methods of his own country, he was fated to encounter the same exasperating slowness at home. It was, therefore, only natural that in spite of the courageous optimism of his nature, he should at times have given way to fits of depression, as is instanced by the following extracts from a letter written to his brother ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... contemporaries that he seemed to have no delight out of the House except in such things as in some way related to the business that was to be done within it. The "undissipated and unwearied application" which he devoted to everything that he undertook was now employed in exasperating the country. The time was not yet ripe for it to be employed in ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... hyperesthetic, uncontrolled, irritably egoistic and demands homage and service from others which exceeds the merit of the individual; in other words, there is added to the anhedonic element an unreasonableness that is peculiarly exasperating. I pass these interesting people by and turn to the opposite of the anhedonic group, the group that is hearty in tastes and appetites, easily pleased as a rule and often crude in their relish of life. There are two main divisions of these hearty simple people,—those who are untrained ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... weeks and months to Rear Admiral Dewey, he having been promoted upon receipt of news of his great victory. Peerless as was his conduct during offensive operations, it was surpassed in many respects by his course throughout the exasperating period named. Germany and France were unfriendly and Aguinaldo treacherous, though Great Britain and Japan were ardent in their sympathy for the United States. Germany especially was a constant cause of irritation to Admiral Dewey, whose patience was often tried to ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis



Words linked to "Exasperating" :   infuriating, vexing, displeasing



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