annoying

Pluralannoyings

1. 1
   adjective

   Causing irritation or annoyance; troublesome and likely to make someone feel impatient or upset.

   Like an itch you can't reach to scratch.

   The constant beeping of the alarm was deeply annoying.

   He has an annoying habit of interrupting people mid-sentence.

   Similarirritating, exasperating, infuriating, tiresome, aggravating

   Oppositepleasant, agreeable, delightful, pleasing

   Note

   A participial adjective built from annoy plus -ing, and it behaves like a true adjective. It grades (more annoying, most annoying) and takes intensifiers such as really or deeply. That gives the quickest test against the verb form: if really or very fits in front, it is the adjective. If it takes an object, as in annoying the neighbors, it is the verb.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of annoy.

   The children spent the whole trip annoying each other in the back seat.

   She has a real talent for annoying everyone in the room within minutes.

   Note

   Here the word is still a verb, so it keeps the verb's grammar. It can take a direct object (annoying each other) or stand without one (stop annoying!), and it pairs with be in progressive tenses. Older texts may carry an archaic, stronger meaning of annoy, to harm or molest, which the everyday adjective does not share.

3. 3
   nounrare

   Something that causes irritation; an annoyance.

   Similarnuisance, irritation

   Note

   Turning the -ing form into a countable noun gives it a plural, and the plural is where this use tends to appear. William Buell Sprague's Annals of the American Unitarian Pulpit (1865) speaks of hearts filled with "uncharitableness and bitter annoyings." The use is rare, and in ordinary writing annoyance does the same job.

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