anguish.
Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress; an emotional state caused by intense misery or suffering.
Meaning & usage
Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress; an emotional state caused by intense misery or suffering.
It took years to overcome the anguish from my wife's death.
Where this word comes from
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.
To suffer pain.
To cause to suffer pain.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English angwischen, anguis(s)en, from Old French angoissier, anguissier, from the noun (see Etymology 1).
Try it on your idea.
anguish has 7 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
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.