aggravation

[In Fr. aggravation; Lat. ad to, and gravatio = heavine .] I. The act of making heavier. 1. The act of making worse or more intolerable. "Corellius Rufus is dead! and dead, too, by his own act! a circumstance of great aggravation to my affliction,"- Melmoth : Pliny , bk. i, lett. 12. 2. The act of making more blameworthy. [See No. III.] 13. The act of colouring or exaggerating. "A painter added a pair of whiskers to the face, and by a little aggravation of the features, changed it Into the Saracen's head."-Add is on. 4. Colloquially : The act of irritating or provoking. 5. Eccles.: The threat to fulminate excommunication after three monitions of the Church; also the stoppage of all intercourse between the excommunicated party and the body of the faithful. II. The state of being rendered heavier, worse, or more difficult to be borne; the state of being coloured or exaggerated. III. That which constitutes the heavier element in anything aggravated. "He to the sins which he commits, hath the aggravation superadded of committing them against knowledge, against conscience, against sight of the contrary law."-Hammond. Not that I endeavour To le en or extenuate my offence; But that, on the other side, if it be weigh'd By itself, with aggravations not surcharged, Or else with just allowance counterpoised, I may, if po ible, thy pardon find.' Milton: Samson Agonistes.