Annoyance

//əˈnɔɪ.əns// noun

noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    That which annoys. countable

    "Having to wait 45 minutes for the bus is a real annoyance, but it's the only way to get to work."

  2. 2
    the act of troubling or annoying someone wordnet
  3. 3
    An act or instance of annoying. countable
  4. 4
    something or someone that causes trouble; a source of unhappiness wordnet
  5. 5
    The psychological state of being annoyed or irritated. uncountable

    "feeling mild annoyance"

Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    anger produced by some annoying irritation wordnet
  2. 7
    an unpleasant person who is annoying or exasperating wordnet
  3. 8
    the psychological state of being irritated or annoyed wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
borebotherirritationirritationmolestationnuisance

Example

More examples

"To our great annoyance, he barged in on our party."

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English anoyaunce (rare form of noyaunce), from Old French anuiance, anoiance, from the verb anuier (“to cause problems”), equivalent to annoy + -ance. Compare French ennui.

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