Annoysome

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Causing irritation or mild vexation, especially through repeated small nuisances that wear down one's patience
2. Likely to bother, irritate or vex a person, often in a persistent and tiresome way
3. Tending to provoke displeasure or impatience, a bothersome quality that grates on the nerves

Etymology: "Annoysome" is a rare English word built from two parts. The first is "annoy," which came into English from Old French "anoier," meaning to vex or trouble. The second is the suffix "-some," the same ending found in words like "handsome" and "troublesome," which turns a verb or noun into an adjective meaning "tending to" or "characterised by" the base idea. Its makeup is not quite that simple, though. The word is best understood as a blend of "annoying" and "noisome," so two words have effectively been fused into one. "Noisome" is itself an older word, meaning offensive or unpleasant, especially to the smell, and it has a separate history of its own. Blending of this kind often happens when a speaker reaches for one word and a near-synonym interferes, producing a new form that carries the meaning of both.