anguish

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   to cause emotional anguish or make miserable

   They anguished me my whole life.

2. 2
   verb

   to suffer great pains or distress

   I anguished at the decision.

3. 3
   noun

   Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress.

   So, ye miserable people; you must go to God in anguishes, and make your prayer to him.

4. 4
   verb

   To suffer pain.

   c. 1900s, Kl. Knigge, Iceland Folk Song, traditional, Harmony: H. Ruland We’re leaving these shores for our time has come, the days of our youth must now end. The hearts bitter anguish, it burns for the home that we’ll never see again.

5. 5
   name

   A surname.

   Edmund Anguish of Somerleighton

6. 6
   name

   A male given name.

   […] been ready and willing to take one of the children by her husband, not being the eldest, to live with her; and that she did afterwards fix upon one of such children, named Anguish, and did request her husband to permit the said child to reside and live with her, […] and the defendant futher pleaded, that the said Anguish, the said child in the said declaration mentioned was not born at the time of the sealing and delivering of the said indenture, but long afterwards.

7. 7
   noun

   extreme mental distress

8. 8
   noun

   extreme distress of body or mind

Etymology

From Middle English angwissh, anguishe, angoise, from Anglo-Norman anguise, anguisse, from Old French angoisse, from Latin angustia (“narrowness, scarcity, difficulty, distress”), from angustus (“narrow, difficult”), from angere (“to press together, cause pain, distress”). See angst, the Germanic cognate, and anger.