Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To cause persistent irritation or resentment.
- intransitive verb To feel or express irritation or resentment about something.
- intransitive verb To become sore or inflamed; fester.
- intransitive verb To cause (someone) to feel irritated or resentful.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To operate rankly or with painful effect; cause inflammation or irritation; produce a festering wound: used of either physical or mental influences.
- To continue or grow rank or strong; continue to be painful or irritating; remain in an inflamed or ulcerous condition; fester, as a physical or mental wound or sore.
- To irritate; inflame; cause to fester.
- To corrode.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb rare To cause to fester; to make sore; to inflame.
- intransitive verb To become, or be, rank; to grow rank or strong; to be inflamed; to fester; -- used literally and figuratively.
- intransitive verb To produce a festering or inflamed effect; to cause a sore; -- used literally and figuratively
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive, intransitive To cause
irritation or deepbitterness . - verb intransitive To
fester .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb gnaw into; make resentful or angry
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It was some days since I had seen Philip; but, weakly enough, I let the memory of that word rankle still.
Brownsmith's Boy A Romance in a Garden George Manville Fenn 1870
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Lest that designation rankle supporters of 21-year-old Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby, whose statistical output at the top of the NHL scoring table is one point better than Ovechkin's (both trail the Penguins 'Evgeni Malkin, another 22-year-old prodigy), the point still holds: In a rink where the wall in the home dressing room reads "from failing hands we throw the torch," the league's standard has been handed to a new generation.
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For agnostics like me, this is the good news -- however it may rankle true believers.
Mark Matousek: Why We Don't Need God to Be Good (and What Religious Folk Don't Want You to Know) Mark Matousek 2011
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Ratner, now 42, is almost as famous for his parties as he is for his career, another thing that seems to rankle his critics, but he insists he only ever wanted to be a film-maker; the money and women merely accompanied the success.
Brett Ratner: 'If it wasn't for Eddie Murphy, Rush Hour wouldn't exist' 2011
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The loss of Oscar must still rankle discerning moviegoers.
5 Best Picture Winners That Didn’t Deserve The Oscar (And What Did) | Fandomania 2010
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For agnostics like me, this is the good news -- however it may rankle true believers.
Mark Matousek: Why We Don't Need God to Be Good (and What Religious Folk Don't Want You to Know) Mark Matousek 2011
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This strange division of labour could be irksome, as both men sometimes found, but they did not let it rankle.
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Deals like the one he got rankle Californians at a time when the state's public employee pension plans are "dangerously underfunded, the result of overly generous benefit promises, wishful thinking and an unwillingness to plan prudently," a government-appointed panel of experts, the Little Hoover Commission, warned last month.
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Spain are in no need of compliments but it was still a tribute to them that England's prolonged defending did not rankle with the fans.
Fabio Capello relishes the contribution of England's future stars 2011
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If true, that suggests a convenient contrivance so that Pakistan could avoid ownership of an operation certain to rankle with the notoriously anti-American public.
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