1. Synonyms for Affronting include insulting, offending, outraging, slighting, provoking, piquing, vexing, wounding, displeasing and hurting

2. But three recent cases are piquing our interest, and analysts say they may signal new and more venal form of corruption.

3. A process of revealing and concealing, of opening and closing off possibilities, of piquing interest and toying with expectations, writing a novel is, after all, not unlike Coquetting. It could be argued that for Charlotte Brontë not only was literature a woman’s (and a man’s) business but so was Coquetting.