anguish
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: ăngʹ-gwĭsh
ipa: /ˈæŋ.ɡwɪʃ/
rhymes: -æŋɡwɪʃ
Forms: form: anguishes
Etymology: From Middle English angwissh, anguishe, angoise, from Anglo-Norman anguise, anguisse, from Old French angoisse, from Latin angustia (“narrowness, scarcity, difficulty, distress”), from angustus (“narrow, difficult”), from angere (“to press together, cause pain, distress”). See angst, the Germanic cognate, and anger.
Senses: examples: text: So, ye miserable people; you must go to God in anguishes, and make your prayer to him.
ref: 1549, Hugh Latimer, "The Third Sermon Preached before King Edward VI
text: Is there no play,
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
ref: c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
text: 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.
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto LIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
text: But they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 6:9:
text: There, loathing Life, and yet of Death afraid,
In Anguish of her Spirit, thus she pray'd.
ref: 1700, [John] Dryden, “Cinyras and Myrrha, out of the Tenth Book of Ovid’s Metamorphosis”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:
text: May I the sacred pleasures know
Of strictest amity, nor ever want
A friend with whom I mutually may share
Gladness and anguish […]
ref: 1708, [John Philips], “Book I”, in Cyder. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 18, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
text: 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.
ref: 1889, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles:
text: 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.
ref: 1892, Walt Whitman, “Old War-Dreams”, in The Leaves of Grass:
synonyms: word: agony
word: calvary
word: cross
word: pang
word: torture
word: torment
word: agony
word: anguish
word: anguishment
word: bereavement
word: living death
word: pang
word: throe
word: torment
word: torture
word: anguish
word: rend
word: difficulty
word: distress
word: grief
word: hardship
word: pain
word: smart
word: torment
word: torture
word: trouble
glosses: Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress.
Derived terms: anguishful
anguishless
anguishly
anguishment
pear of anguish