Also 7 vex’t, vext, 7–9 vex’d. [f. VEX v.]
1. Troubled, harassed; kept in a disturbed or unquiet state.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 509/2. Vexid, vexatus.
1583. Melbancke, Philotimus, T j b. If you will … kepe me still aliue in vexed plighte, for some offence I haue committed, then shew [etc.].
1592. Kyd, Sp. Trag., III. ii. 13. The night … With direfull visions wake my vexed soule.
c. 1670. Wood, Life, 6 Sept. 1645. Col. Legge charged them so gallantly, that the rebels ran back…. Yet farr had they not gone, before these vexed rebels came on againe.
1816. Shelley, Sunset, 43. The tomb of thy dead self Which one vexed ghost inhabits.
1870. Burton, Hist. Scot. (1873), VI. lxx. 189. He thus was chosen to settle the vexed affairs of Scotland.
2. Distressed, grieved; affected with vexation; annoyed, irritated.
1602. 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass., II. i. 564. O how it greeues my vexed soule to see Each painted asse in chayre of dignitye.
1652. Crashaw, Carmen Deo Nostro, Epiphanie, Wks. (1904), 211. [The sun] hiding his vex’t cheeks in a hir’d mist.
1798. S. & Ht. Lee, Canterb. T., II. 96. The vexed father now sighed to himself.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., II. v. While her vex’d spaniel from the beach Bay’d at the prize beyond his reach.
1846. Mrs. A. Marsh, Father Darcy, II. iv. 95. The priest looked vexed and perplexed.
1894. Mrs. Dyan, Man’s Keeping (1899), 247. ‘You think I look it?’ he said, with a vexed little laugh.
absol. 1824. Campbell, Theodoric, 193. Hers was the brow … That cheered the sad, and tranquillized the vexed.
3. Subjected to physical force or strain; tossed about, agitated, belabored, etc.
1610. Shaks., Temp., I. ii. 229. Where once Thou calldst me vp … to fetch dewe From the still vext Bermoothes.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 660. Vex’d Scylla bathing in the Sea that parts Calabria from the hoarce Trinacrian shore. Ibid., X. 314. A ridge of pendent Rock Over the vext Abyss.
1728. Pope, Iliad, XVIII. 549. The ponderous hammer loads his better hand, His left with tongs turns the vexed metal round.
1817. Shelley, Rev. Islam, I. i. The peak of an aereal promontory, Whose caverned base with the vexed surge was hoary.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, I. 21. What time the Chalcian strand Saw the vexed Argive masts In Aulis tides.
1852. G. W. Curtis, Lotus-Eating, viii. 117. The vexed river rages and tumbles among channeled rocks.
4. Vexed question, a much debated or contested question.
1657. Heylin, Ecclesia Vind., 215. Nor do I mean to meddle in so vexed a question.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., I. v. § 8 (1876), 48. This leads to the vexed question to which Dr. Chalmers has very particularly adverted.
1860. Ruskin, Unto this Last, iii. § 54. The vexed question of the destinies of the unemployed workmen.
1874. Mahaffy, Soc. Life Greece, ii. 9. The great vexed question of the origin and composition of the Homeric poems.
Hence Vexedness. rare–1.
1754. Richardson, Grandison, V. xx. 90. My teazing uncle broke out into a loud laugh, which … had more of vexedness than mirth in it.
