Meaning of agony in English

Table of contents
  1. Pronunciation
  2. Noun
    1. Etymology
    2. Definitions

  1. Pronunciation

    /ˈæɡəni/

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  1. Noun

    agony

    Etymology

    late Middle English (originally denoting mental anguish alone): via Old French and late Latin from Greek agōnia, from agōn‘contest’. The sense of physical suffering dates from the early 17th century

    Definitions

    1. intense feelings of suffering

    Examples

    • « acute mental or physical pain »
    • « an agony of doubt »
    • « the torments of the damned »

    Derived terms

  2. 2. a state of acute pain

    Derived terms

Famous quotes

  • « I cannot give a single concert at which I do not play one piece after the other in an agony of terror because my memory threatens to fail me. This fear torments me for days beforehand. »
    Clara Schumann
  • « Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric. »
    Thomas Sowell
  • « In the traditional urban novel, there is only survival or not. The suburban idea, the conformist idea, that agony can be seen to and cured by doctors or psychoanalysis or self-knowledge is nowhere to be found in the city. Talking is a way of life, but it is not a cure. Same with religion. »
    Jane Smiley
  • « In course of time, religion came with its rites invoking the aid of good spirits which were even more powerful than the bad spirits, and thus for the time being tempered the agony of fears. »
    Paul Harris
  • « A lot of people fear death because they think that so overwhelming an experience has to be painful, but I've seen quite a few deaths, and, with one exception, I've never known anyone to undergo anything like agony. That's amazing when you think about it. I mean, how complicated the mechanism is that's being taken apart. »
    Lewis Thomas

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