verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To work against; to oppose (especially to incite a reaction). transitive

   "The other children constantly antagonized Joe to the point of tears."

2. 2
   provoke the hostility of wordnet
3. 3
   act in opposition to wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

aggravateaggravatealienateannoyantagonisebattle

Antonyms

All antonyms

appeasepleasequell

Example

More examples

"He didn't want to antagonize her."

Etymology

From Ancient Greek ἀνταγωνίζομαι (antagōnízomai), from ἀντι- (anti-) + ἀγωνίζομαι (agōnízomai).

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