Bothering

How to spell bothering

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce bothering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bothering mean?

1. verbDisturbing, annoying, or causing trouble or worry to someone or something.
2. verbTaking the trouble or making the effort to do something, often used in the negative.

Bothering in a sentence

• The constant noise from the building site was bothering everyone in the office.

• He left without bothering to lock the front door.

• Please stop bothering your colleague while she finishes the report.

• She answered the email without even bothering to read it properly.

Where does bothering come from?

Language of origin: Celtic

The base word 'bother' surfaced in English in the early 1700s and its origins are genuinely murky, which is why dictionaries hedge on it. The most widely accepted suggestion traces it to Anglo-Irish speech, linking it to the Irish word 'bodhar', meaning 'deaf', 'confused', or 'troubled', so that to bother someone was originally to deafen or befuddle them with noise and fuss. It is no accident that several of its earliest recorded users, including writers such as Sheridan and Swift, had Irish connections. From this sense of being pestered into confusion came the modern meaning of troubling, annoying, or taking the trouble to do something. The participle 'bothering' simply adds the ordinary '-ing' ending; the only spelling point worth remembering is the single 't' and the 'th' in the middle, which mirror the everyday word 'brother'.

How the word is built

• bother (to trouble, annoy)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)