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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

agony.

Extreme pain or anguish.

5 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈæɡ.ə.ni/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈeɪ̯ɡ.ə.ni/
  1. Extreme pain or anguish.

    countable · uncountable
    When the weight fell on her foot, she cried out in agony.
  2. The sufferings of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (often capitalized).

    countable · uncountable
  3. Violent contest or striving.

    countable · dated · uncountable
  4. Paroxysm of joy; keen emotion.

    countable · dated · uncountable
  5. The last struggle of life; death struggle.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

14th century, via Old French and Latin from Ancient Greek ἀγωνία (agōnía, “emulation, competition, struggle”), from ἀγών (agṓn, “contest”). Specifically of the struggle that precedes death (mortal agony) from the 1540s. By surface analysis, agon + -y. The sense of "extreme pain" from c. 1600.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.