Agonizing

Definition: Agonizing

Agonizing

Adjective

1. Extremely painful.

Date "agonizing" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1791. (references)

Synonyms: Agonizing

Synonyms: agonising (adj), excruciating (adj), harrowing (adj), torturesome (adj), torturing (adj), torturous (adj). (additional references)

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Excitation	Exciting, absorbing, riveting, distracting; Verb: impressive, warm, glowing, fervid, swelling, imposing, spirit-stirring, thrilling; high-wrought; soul-stirring, soul-subduing; heart-stirring, heart-swelling, heart-thrilling; agonizing; (painful); telling, sensational, hysterical; overpowering, overwhelming; more than flesh and blood can bear; yellow.
Pain	Sharp, acute, sore, severe, grave, hard, harsh, cruel, biting, caustic; cutting, corroding, consuming, racking, excruciating, searching, grinding, grating, agonizing; envenomed; catheretic, pyrotic.
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

Crosswords: Agonizing

English words defined with "agonizing": Groanful. (references)

Specialty definitions using "agonizing": Dying ♦ Labyrinth, Legs. (references)

Etymologies containing "agonizing": Groanful. (references)

Domain

Usage

Screenplays

You will live it in shivering, agonizing darkness or you will live it triumphantly in the light. (Orientation: A Scientology Information Film; writing credit: L. Ron Hubbard)

I like to experience life in all its agonizing glory. (Xena: Warrior Princess; writing credit: Serge Rodnunsky)

We're all faced throughout our lives with agonizing decisions, moral choices. (Crimes and Misdemeanors; writing credit: Woody Allen)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Domain	Title
Books	A Few Marbles Left: A Close-Up Look at TV News in All Its Agonizing, Maddening Lunacy (And Its Occasional Moments of Glory) (reference) Abortion: The Agonizing Decision (reference) Harsh Realities Agonizing Choices: Making Moral Decisions in a Morally Complex World (reference) Heartbreakers: Baseball's Most Agonizing Defeats (reference) House Fever: A Guide to Buying, Selling, Remodeling, Decorating, and Agonizing over Your Home (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		One of the most vexing neurological disorders is shingles or herpes zoster, an infection that often causes agonizing pain resistant to treatment. (references)
		The build-up of uric acid within the body causes agonizing episodes of self-mutilation and may result in severe retardation and, ultimately, death. (references)
		Head and facial pain can be agonizing, whether it results from dental problems or from disorders such as cranial neuralgia, in which one of the nerves in the face, head, or neck is inflamed. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

Speaker	Term	Phrase(s)
Bill Clinton	1993-2001	In Petaluma, California, an innocent slumber party gives way to agonizing tragedy for the family of Polly Klaas.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

"Agonizing" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 53.66% of the time. "Agonizing" is used about 41 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Adjective (general or positive)	53.66%	22	74,468
Lexical Verb (-ing form)	43.9%	18	82,615
Noun (singular)	2.44%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	41	N/A

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Language		Translations for "agonizing"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Afrikaan		afgryslik (dismal, dreary, ghastly, hideous, horrible, nasty). (various references)

Albanian		pikëllues (distressful, harrowing). (various references)

Arabic		‏فاجع (afflictive, calamitous, catastrophic, distressing, grievous, painful, tragic), ‏موجع (aching, causing pain, distressed, excruciating, grievous, intense pain, painful, sore, tormenting), ‏مؤلم (aching, causing pain, distressful, distressing, excruciating, grievous, painful, sad, sore, sorrowful, tormenting, tormentor). (various references)

Bulgarian		мъчителен (afflictive, awkward, cruel, exasperating, excruciating, grievous, grinding, gruelling, harassing, harrowing, heavy, nerve racking, painful, sticky, tantalizing, torturous, traumatic, trying, vexatious). (various references)

Chinese		挣扎 (Agonize, Agonized, Floundered, Floundering). (various references)

Czech		trýznivý (gnawing, grievous, harrowing), muèivý (excruciating, gnawing, torturing, vexatious). (various references)

Dutch		afschuwelýk (abhorrent, abominable, alien, awful, dismal, dreary, ghastly, gruesome, hideous, horrible, nasty), afgrýselýk (abhorrent, abominable, alien, awful, dismal, dreary, ghastly, gruesome, hideous, horrible, nasty). (various references)

Finnish		tuskallinen (painful). (various references)

French		angoissant, torturant, déchirant, combattant (aggressive). (various references)

Frisian		ôfgryslik (abhorrent, abominable, alien, awful, ghastly, gruesome, hideous, horrible). (various references)

German		qualvoll (anguished, distressful, excruciating, harrowing, harrowingly, painful, pitifully, very painful). (various references)

Greek		σπαρακτικόσ, αγωνιώδησ (desperate), αγωνίων. (various references)

Hungarian		agonizáló, kínzó (acute, crucifying, excessive, excruciating, killing, obsessive, racking, tearing, to keep sy on tenterhooks, tormentor, torturer). (various references)

Indonesian		menyakiti (hurt, infect). (various references)

Italian		orribile (abhorrent, abominable, alien, awful, beastly, dreadful, ghastly, grim, grisly, gruesome, hideous, horrible, horrific, macabre, revolting, shocking), orrendo (abhorrent, abominable, alien, awful, dismal, dreadful, dreary, frightful, ghastly, grisly, gruesome, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrid, nasty, revolting, terrible). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		苦闘 . (various references)

Japanese Katakana		くとう (pause, punctuation). (various references)

Manx		jeir-phianjagh, ard-phianjagh, angaaishagh (anguishing, person in pain, tortured, torturing), aaghaeragh. (various references)

Pig Latin		agonizingay

Portuguese		agonizante, doloroso (bitter, distributable, doleful, dolorous, grievous, painful, sad, salt, sore, sorrowful, trying). (various references)

Romanian		agonizare, agonizant, agonic, chinuitor (cruel, excruciating, gnawing, harrowing, tormentor, torturer). (various references)

Russian		мучительный (agonal, anguished, cruel, excruciating, grievous, nerve-racking, painful, poignant, racking, torturous). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		očajnički (despairing). (various references)

Spanish		horroroso (abhorrent, abominable, alien, awful, dismal, dreadful, dreary, ghastly, gruesome, harrowing, hideous, horrible, horrid, horrifying, nasty, wicked), horrible (abhorrent, abominable, alien, appalling, awful, bleak, dire, direful, dirty, dismal, dread, dreary, evil, formidably, foul, frightful, ghastly, grim, grisly, gruesome, hellish, hideous, horrible, horrid, lousy, lurid, moldy, mouldy, nasty, shocking, stinking, terrible, terror, vile, wicked). (various references)

Swedish		kvalfull (excruciating, torturous). (various references)

Turkish		acı veren (afflictive, excruciating, hurtful), işkenceli (grueling, gruelling), cefalı. (various references)

Ukranian		конаючий, агонізуючий (agonized). (various references)

Vietnamese		l� m khổ sở, l� m đau đớn (afflictive, excrutiating, harrowing, rankling), h� nh hạ (abusive). (various references)

Welsh		ingol (agonized). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

Derivations
	Words beginning with "agonizing": agonizingly. (additional references)
	Words ending with "agonizing": antagonizing. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Agonizing" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: agonisings, agonizen. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "agonizing" (pronounced a"gunīzing)
4	-ī z i ng	franchising, glamorizing, immortalizing, institutionalizing, strategizing, uncompromising, victimizing.
3	-z i ng	abusing, accusing, advertising, advising, aggrandizing, amazing, amortizing, amusing, analyzing, antagonizing, apologizing, appeasing, appetizing, appraising, arising, arousing, authorizing, blazing, boozing, bowsing, browsing, bruising, brutalizing, bulldozing, buzzing, cannibalizing, capitalizing, carousing, categorizing, causing, centralizing, characterizing, chastising, choosing, cleansing, closing, colorizing, commercializing, composing, comprising, compromising, computerizing, confusing, criminalizing, criticizing, cruising, crystallizing, customizing, decentralizing, decomposing, decriminalizing, deemphasizing, defusing, dehumanizing, demilitarizing, democratizing, demonizing, demoralizing, denationalizing, desensitizing, destabilizing, devising, diffusing, digitizing, disclosing, disguising, disposing, downsizing, dozing, dramatizing, easing, economizing, editorializing, emphasizing, enclosing, energizing, enterprising, equalizing, espousing, excusing, exercising, exposing, fantasizing, federalizing, fertilizing, finalizing, foreclosing, formalizing, fraternizing, freezing, fusing, galvanizing, gazing, generalizing, glazing, grazing, harmonizing, hazing, hosing, housing, humanizing, hydrolyzing, idolizing, immobilizing, immunizing, imposing, improvising, industrializing, infusing, ionizing, ironizing, itemizing, jeopardizing, legalizing, legitimizing, liberalizing, losing, marginalizing, materializing, maximizing, memorizing, merchandising, mesmerizing, minimizing, misusing, mobilizing, modernizing, monopolizing, moralizing, musing, nationalizing, neutralizing, normalizing, nosing, oozing, opposing, organizing, overgrazing, overusing, oxidizing, paralyzing, paraphrasing, patronizing, pausing, penalizing, personalizing, perusing, phasing, phrasing, pleasing, polarizing, politicizing, popularizing, posing, praising, predisposing, prioritizing, privatizing, proposing, proselytizing, publicizing, quizzing, raising, rationalizing, razing, realizing, reauthorizing, recapitalizing, recognizing, recusing, refusing, reimposing, reorganizing, reusing, revising, revitalizing, revolutionizing, rising, romanticizing, Rosing, sanitizing, satirizing, schmoozing, scrutinizing, securitizing, seizing, sensationalizing, sizing, sneezing, snoozing, socializing, specializing, squeezing, stabilizing, standardizing, sterilizing, stigmatizing, subsidizing, summarizing, supervising, supposing, surprising, symbolizing, sympathizing, synthesizing, tantalizing, teasing, televising, temporizing, terrorizing, theorizing, tranquilizing, trivializing, unappetizing, unionizing, unsurprising, uprising, using, utilizing, vandalizing, verbalizing, visualizing, warehousing, wheezing, whizzing, womanizing.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-g-g-i-i-n-n-o-z"
	-1 letter: agnizing.
	-2 letters: gaining, ingoing, zingani, zingano, zinging.
	-3 letters: gazing, noggin, zinnia, zoning.
	-4 letters: aging, anion, going, gonia, inion.
	-5 letters: agin, agio, agog, agon, anon, azon, gain, gang, giga, gong, inia, naoi, nazi, nogg, nona, zing.
	Words containing the letters "a-g-g-i-i-n-n-o-z"
	+1 letter: organizing.
	+2 letters: agonizingly, analogizing, jargonizing, sloganizing.
	+3 letters: antagonizing, gormandizing, reorganizing.
	+4 letters: anthologizing, diagonalizing, disorganizing, gourmandizing, outorganizing, regionalizing, unapologizing.
	+5 letters: overorganizing, propagandizing.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.