The word 激怒 is formed by combining two characters: 激, which carries the meaning of "to stimulate", "to provoke", or "to incite", and 怒, which means "anger" or "rage". The formation conceptually follows a cause-and-effect relationship, where the action of the first character (to provoke) directly leads to the state or result denoted by the second character (anger). Thus, the compound naturally means "to enrage" or "to infuriate" , to provoke someone into anger.