Definition of "exasperate"

And this reportHath so exasperate [sic] the king that hePrepares for some attempt of war.

c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene vi]

The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley

Beadle goes into various shops and parlours, examining the inhabitants; always shutting the door first, and by exclusion, delay, and general idiotcy, exasperating the public.

1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, chapter 11, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853

[S]he exasperates her security men by acting as if she were protected by some invisible shield.

1987 January 5, “Woman of the Year: Corazon Aquino”, in Time

News that Adam Crozier, Royal Mail chief executive, is set to receive a bumper bonus will exasperate postal workers.

2007 June 4, “Loyal Mail”, in Times Online, UK, retrieved 7 October 2010

Thersites. Do I curse thee?Patroclus. Why no, you ruinous butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur, no.Thersites. No! why art thou then exasperate, thou idle immaterial skein of sleave-silk […]

c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, scene i]

Like swallows which the exasperate dying yearSets spinning […]

1856, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Fourth Book”, in Aurora Leigh, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1857, page 177