• Annoy

    Pronunciation

    • IPA: /əˈnɔɪ/
    • Rhymes: -ɔɪ

    Origin

    From Middle English annoien, anoien, enoien, from Anglo-Norman anuier, Old French enuier ("to molest, harm, tire"), from Late Latin inodiō ("cause aversion, make hateful", vb..), from the phrase in odiō ("hated"), from Latin odium ("hatred"). Displaced native Middle English grillen ("to annoy, irritate"), from Old English grillan (see grill).

    Full definition of annoy

    Verb

    1. (transitive) To disturb or irritate, especially by continued or repeated acts; to bother with unpleasant deeds.
      • PriorSay, what can more our tortured souls annoy
        Than to behold, admire, and lose our joy?
      • 2013-05-25, No hiding place, In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.
    2. Marc loved his sister, but when she annoyed him he wanted to switch her off.
    3. (intransitive) To do something to upset or anger someone; to be troublesome.
      Connie liked to annoy her brother by using him as a leg rest.
    4. (transitive) To molest; to harm; to injure.to annoy an army by impeding its march, or by a cannonade
      • Evelyntapers put into lanterns or sconces of several-coloured, oiled paper, that the wind might not annoy them

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    Antonyms

    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.
      • 1870, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sciety and Solitude:if she says he was defeated, why he had better a great deal have been defeated, than give her a moment's annoy.
    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 ....

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