A nuisance is something or someone that causes annoyance, inconvenience, or minor trouble without being truly harmful or dangerous. A younger sibling who keeps interrupting while you're trying to read is being a nuisance. A mosquito buzzing around your ear at bedtime is a nuisance. Forgetting your lunch at home is a nuisance.

The word suggests something more than a tiny bother but less than a serious problem. A nuisance disrupts what you're doing or makes life slightly harder, but it doesn't cause real damage. Rain on the day of an outdoor picnic is a nuisance, not a disaster. You might describe someone as making a nuisance of themselves when they pester others repeatedly or get in the way.

In law, a public nuisance is something that bothers or harms many people in a community, like a factory producing terrible smells or excessive noise. A private nuisance affects specific individuals, like a neighbor's tree branches constantly dropping leaves into your yard.

The feeling behind a nuisance is mild frustration mixed with patience wearing thin. It's that “not again” feeling when the same small problem keeps popping up.