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Aggravates the French in rows (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

rankles

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'aggravates' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with human feelings as well as being verbs in their -s form.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?

'the french in rows' is the wordplay.
'the french' becomes 'le' ('the' in French).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'rows' becomes 'ranks' (I've seen this before).
'le' placed into 'ranks' is 'RANKLES'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for rankles that I've seen before include "Continues to hurt" , "Riles" , "Goes on vexing" , "Causes lasting and bitter annoyance" .)

I've seen this clue in The Irish News.
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