throe

From Middle English throwe, perhaps from Old English þrēa, þrówian (“suffer”).

• Rhymes: -əʊ
• Homophone: throw

throe (plural throes)

1. A pang, spasm.
   • 1819, Percy Shelley, The Masque of Anarchy:

     As if their own indignant Earth

     Which gave the sons of England birth

     Had felt their blood upon her brow,

     And shuddering with a mother's throe

     Had turned every drop of blood

     By which her face had been bedewed

     To an accent unwithstood, —

     As if her heart had cried aloud: [...]

2. A hard struggle.
3. A tool for splitting wood into shingles; a frow.

• See also Thesaurus:agony
• See also Thesaurus:pain

• in the throes of

throe (third-person singular simple present throes, present participle throeing, simple past and past participle throed)

1. (transitive) To put in agony.
   • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 2 scene 1

     SEBASTIAN:

     Prithee, say on:

     The setting of thine eye and cheek proclaim

     A matter from thee, and a birth, indeed

     Which throes thee much to yield.

2. (intransitive) To struggle in extreme pain; to be in agony; to agonize.

• Rothe, heort-, hetro, other, rothe, threo-