maddeningly infuriatingly; to an infuriating degree A maddeningly catchy tune bolted onto a monster of a bouncing rhythm pelted out at full tilt . ` Venice is very good at keeping its secrets , ' he murmured with a maddeningly superior smile . What we get is good , but maddeningly brief . Simple tasks _ buttoning a shirt , walking , opening a medicine bottle _ become maddeningly difficult . She was pale and unsteady , and moved maddeningly slowly . used to suggest that sth annoys other people Lydia could quite see Beuno maddeningly getting himself martyred on some trivial point of principle , or overturning a regime with his angelic intransigence . She said maddeningly : ` Say , that 's a nice stole you 've got . He paused again , maddeningly , Merrill thought , twisting spaghetti around his fork . She had a fund of such sayings , but this time she was proved maddeningly right . used to suggest that a circumstance or event is infuriatingHowever do not damage the immobiliser as, maddeningly, this would normally amount to a criminal offence. The personality clashes in the group were alluded to and then, maddeningly, glossed over. Maddeningly, Shaw saw his "romance" transformed by many directors into a simplistic love story coupling Higgins and Eliza at the end.