infuriate

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Pronunciation

• (British) IPA: /ɪnˈfjʊəɹieɪt/ (verb), IPA: /ɪnˈfjʊəɹɪət/ (adjective)

Verb

infuriate (infuriates, present participle infuriating; past and past participle infuriated)

1. To make furious or mad with anger; to fill with fury.

   Synonyms: enrage, madden

   • 1615, Edwin Sandys (died 1629), Sacred Hymns, Consisting of fifti select psalms of David and others, paraphrastically turned into English verse, London, “Psalm 2,” p. 2,

     What graceles fears, strange hates, may Nations so affright,

     Infuriate so; gainst God with mad attempts to fight?

   • 1796, Edmund Burke, Letters on a Regicide Peace, London: J. Owen, Letter 2, p. 105,

     They tore the deputation of the Clergy to pieces by their infuriated declamations and invectives, before they lacerated their bodies by their massacres.

   • 1839, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, Chapter 11,

     He bent over Oliver, and repeated the inquiry; but finding him really incapable of understanding the question; and knowing that his not replying would only infuriate the magistrate the more, and add to the severity of his sentence; he hazarded a guess.

   • 1937, George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier, Penguin, 1962, Part 2, Chapter 9, p. 131,

     I had […] no notion that the working class were human beings. […] I could agonise over their sufferings, but I still hated them and despised them when I came anywhere near them. I was still revolted by their accents and infuriated by their habitual rudeness.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:enrage

Translations

• French: rendre furieux, enrager
• German: wütend machen, zur Weißglut bringen
• Russian: злить
• Spanish: enfurecer

Adjective

infuriate

1. (now rare) Filled with, characterized by or expressing fury.

   Synonyms: enraged, furious, raging

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 6, lines 482-490,^{[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Paradise_Lost_(1667)/Book_VI]}

     These [materials] in thir dark Nativitie the Deep

     Shall yeild us, pregnant with infernal flame,

     Which into hallow Engins long and round

     Thick-rammd, at th’ other bore with touch of fire

     Dilated and infuriate shall send forth

     From far with thundring noise among our foes

     Such implements of mischief as shall dash

     To pieces, and orewhelm whatever stands

     Adverse,

   • 1735, James Thomson (poet, born 1700), The Seasons (Thomson), London: J. Millan & A. Millar, “Autumn,” lines 392-396, p. 26,

     […] the steady tyrant man,

     Who with the thoughtless insolence of power

     Inflam’d, beyond the most infuriate rage

     Of the worst monster that e'er howl'd the waste,

     For sport alone takes up the cruel tract,

   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair (novel), Chapter 32,

     […] she housed and sheltered Mrs. Posky, who fled from her bungalow one night, pursued by her infuriate husband, wielding his second brandy bottle […]

   • 1929, Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel, New York: Modern Library, Chapter 20, p. 280,

     With an infuriate scream the dead awakened.

   • 1951, William Styron, Lie Down in Darkness, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, Chapter 2, p. 51,

     Until Peyton was born, bleak doubt assailed him. He looked at his wife’s body with suspicion and his own with infuriate guilt.

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