Aggrieve

//əˈɡɹiːv// verb

verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To cause someone to feel pain or sorrow to; to afflict transitive

    "Right is positive; wrong is negative—is merely the negation of right; as cold is the negation of heat—darkness of light. That a thing may be wrong, it is necessary that there be some other thing in relation to which it is wrong—some condition which it fails to satisfy; some law which it violates; some being whom it aggrieves."

  2. 2
    cause to feel sorrow wordnet
  3. 3
    To grieve; to lament. intransitive, obsolete
  4. 4
    infringe on the rights of wordnet

Example

More examples

"Right is positive; wrong is negative—is merely the negation of right; as cold is the negation of heat—darkness of light. That a thing may be wrong, it is necessary that there be some other thing in relation to which it is wrong—some condition which it fails to satisfy; some law which it violates; some being whom it aggrieves."

Etymology

From Middle English agreven, from Old French agrever; a (Latin ad) + grever (“to burden, injure”), from Latin gravare (“to weigh down”), from gravis (“heavy”). See grieve, and compare with aggravate.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.