Hassle
adj, noun, verb, slang ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 Trouble, bother, unwanted annoyances or problems. countable, uncountable
"I went through a lot of hassle to be the first to get a ticket."
- 2 disorderly fighting wordnet
- 3 A fight or argument. countable, uncountable
- 4 an angry disturbance wordnet
- 5 An action which is not worth the difficulty involved. countable, uncountable
- 1 To trouble, to bother, to annoy. transitive
"The unlucky boy was hassled by a gang of troublemakers on his way home."
- 2 annoy continually or chronically wordnet
- 3 To pick a fight or start an argument with. transitive
- 4 To work through something troublesome; to be bothered by. transitive
"If you don't want to hassle through converting formats, you'll have to stick with one program."
- 5 To engage in a mock dogfight. slang
"Likewise, “hassling”—mock dogfighting—was strictly forbidden, and so naturally young fighter jocks could hardly wait to go up in, say, a pair of F–100s and start the duel by making a pass at each other at 800 miles an hour, […]"
- 1 hassling; hasslesome Philippines
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"It's a hassle trying to decide what to wear to the party."
Etymology
Unknown. Probably from US Southern dialectal hassle (“to pant, breathe noisily”), possibly from haste + -le (frequentative suffix).
Related phrases
More for "hassle"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.