rankle

verb

1. (intransitive, transitive)To cause irritation, bitterness or acrimony.

   “My colleague's gratuitous criticism still rankles with me.”

   “[…] 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, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600641.txt I stood trembling with agony for the spear was rankling in the wound.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

2. (intransitive)To fester.

   “a splinter rankles in the flesh”

   “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 […]”

   “a malady that burns and rankles inward”

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

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

noun

1. (rare)A festering, embittering object or condition, either mental, or a physical sore or ulcer.

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