riled 1 of 2

as in angry
feeling or showing anger the woman was obviously riled, as she kept throwing things

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riled

2 of 2

verb

past tense of rile
1
2

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of riled
Verb
The shelter’s presence also riled New Yorkers who used the athletic fields the tents were built on. Luis Ferré-Sadurní, New York Times, 23 Dec. 2024 Reddit Reacts Many users have been riled up by the situation and have sided with the mom. Daniel R. Depetris, Newsweek, 6 Dec. 2024 Zach Bryan stopped a concert Saturday night after a fan riled him up at his Washington show. Caroline Thayer, Fox News, 26 Nov. 2024 During a recent episode of the beloved game show, a ruling had viewers riled up over the mispronunciation of an answer. Stephanie Giang-Paunon, Fox News, 15 Oct. 2024 Later, he’ll get riled up and turn nasty, at which point his bias starts to affect our perception of things. Ben Travers, IndieWire, 18 Oct. 2024 Conservatives either get riled by Martin or pay her no mind. Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2024 Brockman’s behavior riled staffers on those teams, with Murati often brought in to either try to rein in Brockman or soothe bruised egos, sources said. Jason Ma, Fortune, 1 Oct. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for riled
Adjective
  • Freed of her caring duties, angry and uncertain about her future Karl gets on a Greyhound bus and heads to Las Vegas where Jean is working as a waitress at the El Cortez.
    Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 14 Aug. 2025
  • The family defended themselves against an angry mob of hundreds of people who surrounded the house, throwing rocks and threatening the family, Duggan said.
    Dana Afana, Freep.com, 14 Aug. 2025
Verb
  • Not seeing his name on the list should have annoyed him.
    Stuart James, New York Times, 9 Apr. 2025
  • While typically a crowd at a concert might have been annoyed that the performer stopped the show to have a chat with a fan, the audience couldn’t have been more supportive and receptive.
    Melissa Locker, Southern Living, 4 Apr. 2025
Verb
  • Madrid were angered by a decision in that game to award Espanyol defender Carlos Romero a yellow card for a 60th-minute challenge on Kylian Mbappe, which was not upgraded to a red card by VAR.
    Guillermo Rai, New York Times, 13 Apr. 2025
  • That meeting angered Israeli officials, and reportedly Dermer in particular.
    Alex Marquardt, CNN Money, 10 Apr. 2025
Verb
  • With the exception of the Russell 2000, which gained 1%, none of the major indices bothered to get out of bed the day after Christmas.
    JJ Kinahan, Forbes, 27 Dec. 2024
  • The technology behind an LLM is sufficiently advanced because the people using it have not bothered to understand it.
    Elizabeth Lopatto, The Verge, 23 Dec. 2024
Verb
  • The sketch opened with Mikey Day as Jesus, recreating the scene from the Bible in which Christ visits the temple and gets enraged at seeing money changers transacting business within its walls.
    Ted Johnson, Deadline, 13 Apr. 2025
  • While there, Jesus visited the temple and enraged upon seeing money changers transacting business within its sacred walls, expelled them all.
    McKinley Franklin, HollywoodReporter, 12 Apr. 2025
Verb
  • The policy outraged customers as going-out-of-business sales continue and some argued there was little notice to redeem their store value.
    Anthony Robledo, USA TODAY, 21 Mar. 2025
  • The move caught White House officials off guard and outraged some supporters of the president, who had been promised that more details would be made public.
    Katherine Faulders, ABC News, 20 Mar. 2025
Adjective
  • The YouTuber Andrew Callaghan has been documenting off-kilter American politics since before the 2020 election, but the recent interview on his Channel 5 web show with an indignant Hunter Biden caught wide attention.
    Ben Smith, semafor.com, 18 Aug. 2025
  • But Hunter speaks with the indignant passion of someone who made nearly $1.5 million selling his art during his father’s campaign and the early years of his administration.
    Boston Herald editorial staff, Boston Herald, 23 July 2025
Adjective
  • Still, this is evanescent stuff, hardly weighty enough to get mad about with respect to the aforementioned problematic areas.
    Leslie Felperin, HollywoodReporter, 28 Aug. 2025
  • Things become considerably more volatile when the actual shoot begins and Coppola’s Willy Wonka-like charm — as Plaza describes it — is put to the test by the demands of realizing his mad vision once and for all.
    David Ehrlich, IndieWire, 28 Aug. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Riled.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/riled. Accessed 3 Sep. 2025.

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