v. [f. L. exacerbāt- ppl. stem of exacerbā-re, f. ex- intensive + acerb-us harsh, bitter, grievous.]
1. trans. To increase the smart of (a pain), the virulence of (disease), the bitterness of (feeling, speech, etc.); to embitter, aggravate. Also, to embitter or sour the feelings of (a person); to irritate, provoke.
1620. trans. P. Du Moulin’s Anatomie of Arminianisme, 497. Certainly it is a greater thing to heale a few that are deadly wounded, then to exacerbate and make more angry & grieuous the wounds of many.
1660. Hist. Wars Scot. under Montrose, App. 206. The Ministers never ceased to exacerbate his misery.
1755. in Johnson.
1818. Art Preserv. Feet, 11. The radical cause of the complaint is often attributed to that which … merely exacerbates the pain.
1843. Poe, Gold Bug, Wks. 1864, I. 56. I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the growing moodiness of his temper.
1852. Miss Yonge, Cameos (1877), II. viii. 102. Exacerbated by disappointment … he had let loose his rage and passion.
1876. Weiss, Wit, Hum. & Shakes., vii. 243. A woman’s language becomes exacerbated because she is so inadequate to protest by actions.
2. intr. for refl.
1837. Penny Cycl., VIII. 410/1. The feverish symptoms disappear or remit soon to recur or exacerbate.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. IV. v. The sour doubting humour has had leave to accumulate and exacerbate.
Hence Exacerbated ppl. a.
1730–6. Bailey (folio), Exacerbated, provoked or vexed, afresh.
1804. Miniature, No. I. (1806), I. 6. The ponderous dignity of the Rambler would, with ‘exacerbated’ severity, lament the sad degeneracy of the present day [etc.].
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxvi. (1856), 326. The disease [scurvy] had come back with renewed and even exacerbated virulence.
1857. G. Gilfillan, in Waller & Denham’s Poems, 208. Butler, then a disappointed and exacerbated man, was malignant enough to lampoon him for lunacy.
