rankle

From Middle English ranklen, ranclen, from Old French rancler, räoncler, draoncler (“to ulcerate, to form a boil”), from Old French draoncle (“a boil”), from Latin dracunculus (“little serpent”), diminutive of Latin dracō (“serpent, dragon”).

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹæŋ.kəl/

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• Rhymes: -æŋkəl

rankle (third-person singular simple present rankles, present participle rankling, simple past and past participle rankled)

1. (transitive or intransitive) To cause irritation or deep bitterness.

   Synonyms: embitter, irritate

   • 1890, Alfred Thayer Mahan, chapter IX, in The Influence of Sea Power upon History:

     […] and the alliance which was dictated by sound policy, by family ties, and by just fear of England's sea power, was further assured to France by recent and still existing injuries that must continue to rankle with Spain. […]

   • 1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter XX,

     I stood trembling with agony for the spear was rankling in the wound.

   • 1942 December 31, Mahatma Gandhi, “Letter on New Year’s Eve: May the New Year bring peace to us [Letter to Lord Linlithgow]”, in R. L. Khipple, editor, Famous Letters of Mahatma Gandhi, Lahore: The Indian Printing Works, published 1947, page 131:

     Contrary to the biblical injunction, I have allowed many suns to set on a quarrel I have harboured against you, but I must not allow the old year to expire without disburdening myself of what is rankling in my breast against you.

   • 2014, Emily Dalton, A Baby for Lord Roderick:

     Liam hadn't meant for that last part to slip out. Allie might think it pretty pathetic that he'd remembered that comment from the first night they met, but it had rankled him then and, to some degree, it rankled him now.

   • 2022 June 14, John McWhorter, “Republicans Want to ‘Harden’ Schools. That’s an Awful Euphemism.”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     What most rankles me about the term is how casually it is being applied to schools—temples of learning—and especially to children.

2. (intransitive) To fester.

   a splinter rankles in the flesh

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     But yet the cause and root of all his ill,
     Inward corruption and infected sin,
     Not purg'd nor heald, behind remained still,
     And festring sore did rankle yet within […]

   • 1707, Nicholas Rowe, The Royal Convert:

     a malady that burns and rankles inward

   • 1796, Edmund Burke, A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made upon Him and His Pension, […], 10th edition, London: […] J. Owen, […], and F[rancis] and C[harles] Rivington, […], →OCLC:

     This would have left a rankling wound in the hearts of the people.

   • 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, chapter XIV, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:

     You are beside him, sleeping and waking. You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart!

   • 1855, Robert Browning, Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, section XXVI:

     Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim, / Now patches where some leanness of the soil's / Broke into moss or substances like boils;

rankle (plural rankles)

1. (rare) A festering, embittering object or condition, either mental, or a physical sore or ulcer.[1]
   • 1795, James Harris, 1st Earl of Malmesbury, Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury., R. Bentley, published 1844, page 220:

     To this the Prince appeared to acquiesce; but I saw it did not please, and left a rankle in his mind.

• KERNAL, Karlen, lanker