as in to worsen
to make more severe
a misconceived plan that only exacerbated the city's traffic problem
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Recent Examples of exacerbate
What exacerbated the financial strain on tenants was soaring rent costs during the pandemic.
—
Jonathan Lansner, Oc Register, 16 Sep. 2025
As a result, five controllers took 45-day government trauma leave, exacerbating staffing shortages.
—Aaron Cooper, CNN Money, 16 Sep. 2025
Unusually high temperatures exacerbated the problem.
—Rick Hurd, Mercury News, 16 Sep. 2025
Central Mexico is quickly becoming the country's data center capital, but the region is also prone to droughts and blackouts, The Guardian reports, two issues data centers will likely exacerbate.
—Senior Reporter, PC Magazine, 16 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for exacerbate
Jonathan Lansner, Oc Register, 16 Sep. 2025
As a result, five controllers took 45-day government trauma leave, exacerbating staffing shortages.
—Aaron Cooper, CNN Money, 16 Sep. 2025
Unusually high temperatures exacerbated the problem.
—Rick Hurd, Mercury News, 16 Sep. 2025
Central Mexico is quickly becoming the country's data center capital, but the region is also prone to droughts and blackouts, The Guardian reports, two issues data centers will likely exacerbate.
—Senior Reporter, PC Magazine, 16 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for exacerbate
Recent Examples of Synonyms for exacerbate
Verb
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Anger has been brewing in the Himalayan nation for years about the country’s worsening youth unemployment and lack of economic opportunities, exacerbated by what many view as a growing disparity between the country’s elite and regular people.—
Sugam Pokharel,
CNN Money,
12 Sep. 2025
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Pink Light takes the inspiring sports drama genre, where athletes have to overcome obstacles in their sport and personal lives, in a new direction as Browne tackles the worsening debate around trans athletes in the media and political spaces.—
Etan Vlessing,
HollywoodReporter,
12 Sep. 2025
Verb
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This technological advance is expected to significantly deepen our understanding of brain function, providing critical insights into how perception, cognition, and behavior are intricately linked to underlying neural processes.—
Bojan Stojkovski,
Interesting Engineering,
13 Sep. 2025
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Rethinking Education For The AI Age Our educational systems, designed for a pre-digital world, are vulnerable to deepening the hybrid cognitive trap.—
Cornelia C. Walther,
Forbes.com,
12 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Jackson missed a month because of a toe injury in preseason, then re-aggravated it in the opening loss against the Colts.—
Barry Jackson,
Miami Herald,
13 Sep. 2025
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Meers, 53, was charged with manslaughter and aggravated abuse of a vulnerable adult, prosecutors said.—
Paloma Chavez,
Sacbee.com,
10 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Officials say these events have intensified threat assessments and prompted tighter control over all physical and aerial access points.—
Amanda Castro
Hannah Parry
Shane Croucher
Jack Royston,
MSNBC Newsweek,
18 Sep. 2025
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Under leader Xi Jinping, China has intensified military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan, regularly sending fighter jets and warships, looking to squeeze its presence on the world stage.—
Wayne Chang,
CNN Money,
18 Sep. 2025
Verb
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That dynamic, combined with the concentration of economic gains in AI and among the wealthy, risks deepening inequality, and complicates the Fed’s attempt to balance its inflation and employment mandates.—
Eva Roytburg,
Fortune,
17 Sep. 2025
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Deep Monitoring And Debugging AI agents operate in workflows with APIs, third-party data and multistep chains of logic—complicating the debugging and monitoring.—
Gaurav Aggarwal,
Forbes.com,
17 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Exacerbate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/exacerbate. Accessed 19 Sep. 2025.
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