vexation
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "vexation", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "vexation" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "vexation" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
vexation is aEnglishnoun. It means: The action of vexing, annoying, or irritating someone or something; (countable) an instance of this. Pronounced /vɛkˈseɪʃn̩/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | vexation |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /vɛkˈseɪʃn̩/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #97,682 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for vexation is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /vɛkˈseɪʃn̩/. Corpus data places it at rank #97,682 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for vexation in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Late Middle English vexacioun, vexation (“physical suffering; act of inflicting trouble (specifically through unjustified legal action); anxiety, mental distress; mental disturbance”), from Anglo-Norman vexacion, vexation, Middle French vexacion, vexat… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is vexation, spelled V-E-X-A-T-I-O-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The action of vexing, annoying, or irritating someone or something; (countable) an instance of this.
- 2The action of vexing, annoying, or irritating someone or something; (countable) an instance of this.
- 3The action of vexing, annoying, or irritating someone or something; (countable) an instance of this.
- 4The state of being vexed, annoyed, or irritated; annoyance, irritation; also, disappointment, discontentment, unhappiness; (countable) an instance of this.
- 5The state of being vexed, annoyed, or irritated; annoyance, irritation; also, disappointment, discontentment, unhappiness; (countable) an instance of this.
- 6The state of being vexed, annoyed, or irritated; annoyance, irritation; also, disappointment, discontentment, unhappiness; (countable) an instance of this.
- 7A source of mental distress or trouble; an affliction, a woe; also, a source of annoyance or irritation; an annoyance, an irritant.
- 8The action of using force or violence on someone or something; (countable) an instance of this.
Etymology
From Late Middle English vexacioun, vexation (“physical suffering; act of inflicting trouble (specifically through unjustified legal action); anxiety, mental distress; mental disturbance”), from Anglo-Norman vexacion, vexation, Middle French vexacion, vexation (“distress, suffering; harassment (specifically through unjustified legal action)”), and Old French vexacion, vexation (“distress, suffering; harassment”) (modern French vexation), and from their etymon Latin vexātiō (“shaking or similar violent movement; (causing of) agitation, distress, suffering; harassment, persecution; trouble”), from vexātus + -iō (suffix forming abstract nouns from verbs). Vexātus is the perfect passive participle of vexō (“to shake or jolt violently; to annoy, harass; to persecute; to trouble violently”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ-. By surface analysis, vex + -ation (suffix denoting an action or process or its result, or a quality or state). Doublet of quake.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #97,682 in English
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Nearby English words
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