agony
pronunciation
How to pronounce agony in British English:
UK [ˈæɡəni]
How to pronounce agony in American English:
US [ˈæɡəni]
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- Noun:
- intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain
- a state of acute pain
Word Origin
- agony
- agony: [14] Agony is one of the more remote relatives of that prolific Latin verb agere (see AGENT). Its ultimate source is the Greek verb ágein ‘lead’, which comes from the same Indo- European root as agere. Related to ágein was the Greek noun agón, originally literally ‘a bringing of people together to compete for a prize’, hence ‘contest, conflict’ (which has been borrowed directly into English as agon, a technical term for the conflict between the main characters in a work of literature).Derived from agón was agōníā ‘(mental) struggle, anguish’, which passed into English via either late Latin agōnia or French agonie. The sense of physical suffering did not develop until the 17th century; hitherto, agony had been reserved for mental stress. The first mention of an agony column comes in the magazine Fun in 1863.=> antagonist
- agony (n.)
- late 14c., "mental suffering" (especially that of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane), from Old French agonie, agoine "anguish, terror, death agony" (14c.), and directly from Late Latin agonia, from Greek agonia "a (mental) struggle for victory," originally "a struggle for victory in the games," from agon "assembly for a contest," from agein "to lead" (see act (n.)). Sense of "extreme bodily suffering" first recorded c. 1600.
Antonym
Example
- 1. A reader today can only imagine crawford 's agony .
- 2. He voices the agony most people would know in his circumstances .
- 3. Everything that we see now is just part of the agony .
- 4. The euro 's agony is coming full circle .
- 5. The tabloids and packs of gum offer relief from the agony of waiting .