Frustrated

How to spell frustrated

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce frustrated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does frustrated mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling annoyed and discouraged because you are unable to achieve or change something.
2. verbPrevented a plan, effort, or person from succeeding; thwarted.

Frustrated in a sentence

• adjective

  He felt frustrated after waiting two hours for the delayed train.

• verb

  The new alarm system frustrated the burglars before they reached the safe.

• adjective

  She grew increasingly frustrated with the slow office internet.

• verb

  Heavy snow frustrated every attempt to reach the remote village.

Where does frustrated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb frustrare, meaning 'to deceive, to disappoint, or to bring to nothing', which itself grew out of the adverb frustra, literally 'in vain' or 'without effect'. In its earliest English use during the 1400s, to frustrate something meant to make it useless or to defeat a plan, a sense still alive when we say a scheme was frustrated. The familiar emotional meaning, feeling thwarted and irritated because your efforts come to nothing, developed later as the idea of being personally blocked took hold. The participle frustrated simply adds the regular -ed ending to the verb. Because the Latin root keeps the cluster 'frustr' intact, the spelling is more regular than it sounds; the trap for many writers is the unstressed second syllable, where the -trat- can blur in speech.

How the word is built

• frustr- (from Latin frustra: in vain)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)
• -ed (past tense / adjective suffix)