vexation

Holly is already known to police because she’s in the habit of sneaking into the house where she grew up and sleeping there overnight, to the vexation of the current owners.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 16, 2026

"You might be feeling a familiar vexation at the sight of these two formerly innocuous numerals," Dictionary.com said, addressing parents as it announced the winner this week.

From Barron's ● Oct. 30, 2025

Even if you don’t care about bowling, his vexation is understandable.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2023

He’s more strategic about his delivery than in his previous special, varying the pace, taking a break from his roaring vexation to become softer on occasion, allowing silence for a jarring contrast.

From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2022

To my intense vexation, he had even bought a TV Guide, to plan his viewing more effectively over the coming days.

From "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson

Ahead of Sunday’s election for a new parliament and government, those vexations are being heard again as the European Union country’s two main parties, the center-left Socialists and the center-right Social Democrats, compete for power.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 27, 2022

By now, the litany of vexations is well known: the jammed phone lines, the hours on hold, the online system that balks and crashes, the inexplicable responses to re-file and then re-file again.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 17, 2020

But all vexations are calmed, and “Downton Abbey” concludes with both Lady Edith and Daisy uttering the sacred words “I’m happy.”

From The New Yorker ● Sep. 20, 2019

The exchange, in a Maryland murder case in which both families knew well the vexations of mental-health struggles, laid bare a shared pain.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 26, 2017

Abe had now attained his majority and began to throw from his shoulders the vexations of parental restraint.

From Abraham Lincoln, Volume 1 (of 2) The True Story Of A Great Life by William H. Herndon