Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A difficult or painful experience, especially one that severely tests character or endurance. synonym: trial.
- noun A method of trial in which the accused was subjected to pain or danger as a means of invoking God's intercession, with the outcome regarded as revealing a divine determination of guilt or innocence.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A form of trial to determine guilt or innocence, formerly practised in Europe, and still in parts of the East and by various savage tribes.
- noun A severe trial; trying circumstances; a severe test of courage, endurance, patience, etc.
- noun Synonyms Proof, experiment, touchstone.
- Pertaining to trial by ordeal.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Of or pertaining to trial by ordeal.
- noun An ancient form of test to determine guilt or innocence, by appealing to a supernatural decision, -- once common in Europe, and still practiced in the East and by savage tribes.
- noun Any severe trial, or test; a painful experience.
- noun (Bot.) See Calabar bean, under
Calabar . - noun (Bot.) the root of a species of Strychnos growing in West Africa, used, like the ordeal bean, in trials for witchcraft.
- noun (Bot.) a poisonous tree of Madagascar (
Tanghinia venenata syn.Cerbera venenata ). Persons suspected of crime are forced to eat the seeds of the plumlike fruit, and criminals are put to death by being pricked with a lance dipped in the juice of the seeds.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
painful ortrying experience . - noun A
trial in which theaccused wassubjected to adangerous test (such asducking in water),divine authority deciding theguilt of the accused.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a severe or trying experience
- noun a primitive method of determining a person's guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under divine control; escape was usually taken as a sign of innocence
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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However, the largest crime in this ordeal is the response of the people who act as if they are so crushed by his actions.
Ryan Mack: Man vs. Message: What We Can Learn from the Eddie Long Story Ryan Mack 2010
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However, the largest crime in this ordeal is the response of the people who act as if they are so crushed by his actions.
Ryan Mack: Man vs. Message: What We Can Learn from the Eddie Long Story Ryan Mack 2010
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However, the largest crime in this ordeal is the response of the people who act as if they are so crushed by his actions.
Ryan Mack: Man vs. Message: What We Can Learn from the Eddie Long Story Ryan Mack 2010
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Now, looking back on the past few tumultuous years, he can glean a glimmer of satisfaction from what he calls his ordeal by humiliation.
Telegraph.co.uk: news, business, sport, the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Sunday Telegraph 2010
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Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Trapped Chilean miners 'letters suggest their ordeal is changing them.
Writing Home, 'New' Miners Emerge Matt Moffett 2010
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The oddest part of the whole ordeal is that despite this original usage, there's an affirmation of Christ's presence in the communities of the Reformation without an affirmation of their catholicity.
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What happens to Harry after his ordeal is over should be left to the imagination of the reader.
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Otherwise, I am not even watching the daily reruns on cable of "Grey's Anatomy" -- my own body and midstream ordeal is swallowing the lion's share of my focus right now, and as Stuart Smalley would say, "That's okay."
Archive 2009-11-01 2009
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The entire ordeal is influenced by the coal lobby on one side and anti-nuclear forces on the other ... but simply streamlining nuclear licensing while prohibiting coal for municipal power will cost nothing and reduce emissions with none of this emissions trading beurocracy that seems to be more and more popular.
Global Warming Heretics, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty 2009
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How these two, and the other 31 miners, will be changed by their ordeal is something friends and psychologists are grappling to understand.
Writing Home, 'New' Miners Emerge Matt Moffett 2010
guitar commented on the word ordeal
Severe or painful trial as expierence
July 8, 2014