anguish
English
Etymology
From Middle English angwissh, anguishe, angoise, from Anglo-Norman anguise, anguisse, from Old French angoisse, from Latin angustia (“narrowness, difficulty, distress”), from angustus (“narrow, difficult”), from angere (“to press together”). See angst, the Germanic cognate, and anger.
Pronunciation
- enPR: ăngʹ-gwĭsh, IPA(key): /ˈæŋ.ɡwɪʃ/
audio (US) (file)
Noun

August Friedrich Albrecht Schenck – Anguish. Oil on canvas around 1877.
anguish (countable and uncountable, plural anguishes)
- Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress.
- 1549, Hugh Latimer, "The Third Sermon Preached before King Edward VI:
- So, ye miserable people; you must go to God in anguishes, and make your prayer to him.
- 1595/96, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer's Night Dream, Act V, sc. 1:
- Is there no play,
- To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, Fairie Queene, Book I, LIII:
- Love of your selfe, she saide, and deare constraint,
- Lets me not sleepe, but wast the wearie night
- In secret anguish and unpittied plaint,
- Whiles you in carelesse sleepe are drowned quight.
- 1611, King James Version, Exodus 6:9:
- But they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.
- 1700, John Dryden, Fables, Ancient and Modern, "Cinyras and Myrrha":
- There, loathing Life, and yet of Death afraid,
- In Anguish of her Spirit, thus she pray'd.
- 1708, John Philips, Cyder, A Poem in Two Books, Book I:
- May I the sacred pleasures know
- Of strictest amity, nor ever want
- A friend with whom I mutually may share
- Gladness and anguish ...
- 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 18:
- She took his trembling hand, and kissed it, and put it round her neck: she called him her John—her dear John—her old man—her kind old man; she poured out a hundred words of incoherent love and tenderness; her faithful voice and simple caresses wrought this sad heart up to an inexpressible delight and anguish, and cheered and solaced his over-burdened soul.
- 1889, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles:
- A terrible scream—a prolonged yell of horror and anguish—burst out of the silence of the moor. That frightful cry turned the blood to ice in my veins.
- 1892, Walt Whitman, The Leaves of Grass, "Old War-Dreams":
- In midnight sleep of many a face of anguish,
- Of the look at first of the mortally wounded, (of that indescribable
- look,)
- Of the dead on their backs with arms extended wide,
- I dream, I dream, I dream.
- 1549, Hugh Latimer, "The Third Sermon Preached before King Edward VI:
Related terms
▼ <a class='CategoryTreeLabel CategoryTreeLabelNs14 CategoryTreeLabelCategory' href='/wiki/Category:English_terms_derived_from_the_PIE_root_*h%E2%82%82en%C7%B5%CA%B0-' title='Category:English terms derived from the PIE root *h₂enǵʰ-'>English terms derived from the PIE root *h₂enǵʰ-</a> (0 c, 8 e)
<a class='CategoryTreeLabel CategoryTreeLabelNs0 CategoryTreeLabelPage' href='/wiki/agnail' title='agnail'>agnail</a>
<a class='CategoryTreeLabel CategoryTreeLabelNs0 CategoryTreeLabelPage' href='/wiki/anger' title='anger'>anger</a>
<a class='CategoryTreeLabel CategoryTreeLabelNs0 CategoryTreeLabelPage' href='/wiki/angst' title='angst'>angst</a>
<a class='CategoryTreeLabel CategoryTreeLabelNs0 CategoryTreeLabelPage' href='/wiki/anguish' title='anguish'>anguish</a>
<a class='CategoryTreeLabel CategoryTreeLabelNs0 CategoryTreeLabelPage' href='/wiki/anxiety' title='anxiety'>anxiety</a>
<a class='CategoryTreeLabel CategoryTreeLabelNs0 CategoryTreeLabelPage' href='/wiki/anxious' title='anxious'>anxious</a>
<a class='CategoryTreeLabel CategoryTreeLabelNs0 CategoryTreeLabelPage' href='/wiki/English' title='English'>English</a>
<a class='CategoryTreeLabel CategoryTreeLabelNs0 CategoryTreeLabelPage' href='/wiki/hangnail' title='hangnail'>hangnail</a>
Translations
extreme pain
|
|
Verb
anguish (third-person singular simple present anguishes, present participle anguishing, simple past and past participle anguished)
- (intransitive) To suffer pain.
- (Can we date this quote?) 1900s, Kl. Knigge, Iceland Folk Song, traditional, Harmony: H. Ruland
- We’re leaving these shores for our time has come, the days of our youth must now end. The hearts bitter anguish, it burns for the home that we’ll never see again.
- (Can we date this quote?) 1900s, Kl. Knigge, Iceland Folk Song, traditional, Harmony: H. Ruland
- (transitive) To cause to suffer pain.
Translations
suffer pain
|
cause to suffer pain
Further reading
- anguish in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- anguish in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.