annoys

1. 1
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of annoy.

   His constant complaining annoys everyone in the office.

   The dripping faucet annoys her late at night.

   Note

   The form the verb takes after he, she, it or any singular noun in the present: the faucet annoys her, but the faucets annoy her. It works both ways the verb does, with an object (it annoys everyone) or without one, meaning simply to be troublesome. An older sense, to harm or injure, is archaic; in present-day English annoys means irritation, not injury.

2. 2
   nounarchaic

   Plural of annoy. Archaic; the modern word is annoyances.

   Note

   A plural that belongs to poetry and deliberately old-fashioned prose, since the noun annoy is itself archaic and literary. Of its two meanings, a feeling of vexation and the thing that causes it, the plural suits the second: annoys are separate irritations, counted one by one. The same spelling is also the everyday verb form, so a reader will take annoys as a verb unless the context clearly makes it a noun.

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