Annoying

How to spell annoying

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce annoying

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does annoying mean?

1. adjectiveCausing irritation or mild anger; tiresome to deal with.

Annoying in a sentence

• The constant annoying hum from the office printer made it hard to concentrate.

• His habit of interrupting every meeting was genuinely annoying.

Where does annoying come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin phrase 'in odio', meaning literally 'in hatred', which survived in the expression 'mihi in odio est', roughly 'it is hateful to me'. From that phrase Old French formed the verb 'anoier' or 'enuier', meaning to vex, weary, or irritate, and the related noun 'anui', the distant ancestor of the modern French 'ennui'. English borrowed the verb 'annoy' in the 1200s with the sense of harassing or troubling someone, and the present participle 'annoying' came to work as an adjective describing whatever causes that irritation. The doubled 'n' is the spelling trap: it reflects the Old French 'an-' opening, even though many writers instinctively reach for a single 'n'. It is a useful memory hook that the same 'in odio' root quietly underlies the borrowed word 'ennui', the elegant cousin of plain old annoyance.

How the word is built

• annoy (from Old French anoier: to vex)
• -ing (adjective suffix)