exacerbate
6 synonyms and 4 antonyms for exacerbate, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.
Verb — To make an already bad situation, problem or feeling noticeably worse.
Synonyms
Less common
Still standard English, but they carry more weight.
Rare, literary or technical
Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.
Antonyms
How to use exacerbate
The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.
exacerbate the problem
exacerbate tensions
exacerbate symptoms
further exacerbated by
Formal, at home in news reporting, medical writing and policy documents.
Etymology
From Latin exacerbare 'to irritate, embitter', from ex- (intensifying) and acerbus 'harsh, bitter'.
Full origin of exacerbate →Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between exacerbate and exasperate?
Exacerbate makes a bad situation worse and takes a problem as its object. Exasperate means to irritate a person intensely and takes a person as its object. Traffic exacerbates pollution; traffic exasperates drivers.
What is the difference between exacerbate and aggravate?
In the sense of making something worse they are near-synonyms, and both are correct. Aggravate has an extra everyday meaning of 'annoy', so exacerbate is the safer choice in formal writing where you want no ambiguity.
How do you pronounce exacerbate?
It is ig-ZASS-er-bayt, with the second syllable stressed and the 'c' sounded as a soft 's'. The common mispronunciation with a hard 'k' comes from reading the spelling rather than the Latin.
