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If you keep trying someone's patience, eventually they will run out of patience and do something to punish you. What is your "negative achievement" called at this stage? You have managed to make some people lose their patience. I'm looking for an equivalent phrase for "make someone lose their patience".

An example can be a grown-up child living with his parents who keeps being lazy and annoying the parents till they lose their patience and ask him to leave. What has this child done to his parents?

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    "the last straw that broken the camel's back": idioms.thefreedictionary.com/last+straw
    – Mike
    Commented Apr 5, 2015 at 2:37
  • @SvenYargs sounds like an answer
    – bib
    Commented Apr 5, 2015 at 2:37
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    You have exhausted their patience. You gave them "more than they could put up with". If you were a guest, you "overstayed your welcome".
    – Brian Hitchcock
    Commented Apr 5, 2015 at 6:10
  • @BrianHitchcock has it (+1). You can also say, "I've had it with you and your pesky questions". ;-)
    – Drew
    Commented Apr 5, 2015 at 16:53

2 Answers 2

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It's not a phrase, but in a word the child has exasperated the parents, where the relevant meaning of exasperate is, according to Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003), "to cause irritation or annoyance to."

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  • "Exasperate" is indeed the verb you are looking for.
    – bobro
    Commented Apr 5, 2015 at 6:53
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put/set someone on edge

drive someone to the brink

to do (someone's) head in Brit to upset, annoy, or exasperate someone (slang)

drive somebody crazy (slang)

could help

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