These words imply one of two situations: either one in which a person is actively annoying another or to a situation in which a person is upset by something not necessarily the actions of someone else. Some of these words can carry either the active or passive implication; other are mainly restricted to one sense or the other.

Bother , disturb and plague are often used in both active and passive senses. On the passive scale, bother usually indicates a minor complaint that may come and go: frequently bothered by a slight stiffness in his joints. Disturb is more intense, suggesting specifically, at its most extreme, mental derangement: the mentally disturbed delinquent. In milder uses, disturb points to a state of upset more thoroughgoing than that of bother : I was bothered by the lack of news at first, but now, after a month, I am really disturbed. Plague , in its passive sense, is perhaps the most intense of all these words, but suggests a specific kind of upset, one that repeatedly hammers inside the mind without pause. The person who is plagued ?by thoughts or by conditions around him ?is by implication in control neither of the things that hound or harry him nor of their recurrence within his possibly unstable mind: plagued by constant recollections of his long-dead wife; plagued by the odour in the packing plant; plagued by a continual lack of money.

These same three words ?bother , disturb and plague ?give a somewhat different scale of effects in their active senses. In this case, disturb is the weakest in intensity. One person, for example, may disturb another unintentionally by actions not directed specifically to the latter: Did my whistling disturb you? Bother , here, is stronger than disturb , since an implication is present that the action may be done intentionally to disturb : Just pay the bill and I’ll stop bothering you. Plague is even stronger in the active voice than in the passive, suggesting repeated, deliberate annoyances that may have an almost demoniacal insistence: The bill collector plagued us with unrelenting phone calls, visits and threats.

Trouble and worry are largely confined to the passive implication of being upset about something.

• I am troubled by the doctor’s report; I’m worried that I’ll fail in the exam.

Both words are more forceful than the passive use of bother but less so than the same use of disturb . Trouble is slightly more formal than worry and suggests a definite cause for alarm; worry suggests less clear-cut reasons for uneasiness, specifically implying suspense over the outcome of something. Trouble is also more inclusive; one may be troubled without indulging in the helpless wasted motions of thought implied by worry .

In contrast, pester and harass are almost exclusively restricted to the active sense of someone annoying another person.

• The platoon sergeant constantly harassed his men in ingeniously excruciating ways; Stop pestering me!

Both words are more forceful than the active use of disturb and even of bother . Pester is like the active use of plague in suggesting repeated and deliberate annoyances that interrupt someone else, but remains restricted mainly to trivial matters. Harass is considerably stronger, even carrying the possibility of physical punishment or worse: guerillas nightly harassing the border villages. Harass may even be stronger than plague in this case, since the latter stops short of any implication of physical violence.