Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Agonizing physical or mental pain; torment. synonym: regret.
  • intransitive verb To cause to feel or suffer anguish.
  • intransitive verb To feel or suffer anguish.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Excruciating or agonizing pain of either body or mind; acute suffering or distress.
  • noun An overwhelming emotion.
  • noun Synonyms Agony, Anguish, Pang, etc. See agony and grief.
  • To distress with excruciating pain or grief.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress.
  • transitive verb rare To distress with extreme pain or grief.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress.
  • verb intransitive To suffer pain.
  • verb transitive To cause to suffer pain.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb suffer great pains or distress
  • noun extreme distress of body or mind
  • verb cause emotional anguish or make miserable
  • noun extreme mental distress

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English angwisshe, from Old French anguisse, from Latin angustiae, distress, from angustus, narrow; see angh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English 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.

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Examples

Comments

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  • A fairly well-known rhyme translated into Anguish:

    Sinker sucker socks pants

    Apocryphal awry

    Foreign turnkey blank boards

    Bagged inner pyre.

    Whinny pious orphaned

    Door boards bay-gander sink.

    Worsen dizzy jelly ditch

    Toe setter furry kink?

    September 16, 2009

  • In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly. 1 Samuel 1 : 10

    January 3, 2011