Aggravator
to make worse or more severe; intensify, as anything evil, disorderly, or troublesome:
to aggravate a grievance; to aggravate an illness.
to annoy; irritate; exasperate:
His questions aggravate her.
to cause to become irritated or inflamed:
The child’s constant scratching aggravated the rash.
Historical Examples
So it would appear that even champagne is a mitigant, rather than an aggravator, of at least the public horrors of drunkenness.
Appletons’ Popular Science Monthly, August 1899 Various
verb (transitive)
to make (a disease, situation, problem, etc) worse or more severe
(informal) to annoy; exasperate, esp by deliberate and persistent goading
v.
1520s, “make heavy, burden down,” from past participle adjective aggravate “burdened; threatened” (late 15c.), from Latin aggravatus, past participle of aggravare “to render more troublesome,” literally “to make heavy” (see aggravation). Earlier in this sense was aggrege (late 14c.). Meaning “to make a bad thing worse” is from 1590s; that of “exasperate, annoy” is from 1610s.
To aggravate has properly only one meaning — to make (an evil) worse or more serious. [Fowler]
Related: Aggravated; aggravating. Phrase aggravating circumstances is recorded from 1790.
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