excruciating
Americanadjective
-
extremely painful; causing intense suffering; unbearably distressing; torturing: excruciating pain.
an excruciating noise;
excruciating pain.
- Synonyms:
- racking, agonizing, unendurable, insufferable, unbearable
-
exceedingly elaborate or intense; extreme.
done with excruciating care.
adjective
-
unbearably painful; agonizing
-
intense; extreme
he took excruciating pains to do it well
-
informal irritating; trying
-
humorous very bad
an excruciating pun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of excruciating
First recorded in 1655–65; excruciat(e) + -ing 2
Explanation
Something that’s really intense or painful is excruciating. If you go skiing and break your leg in several places, the ride from the slope to the hospital will be excruciating — unless you're unconscious, too. Excruciating doesn't just hurt. It feels like torture. This adjective actually comes to us from the Latin excruciatus, which means “to afflict, harass, vex, torment.” Extremely painful injuries are certainly excruciating, but sometimes so are tedious tasks or long waits: Watching the old lady in front of you pay for her groceries one nickel at a time can be just as excruciating as 4 broken ribs, especially if you're in a hurry.
Vocabulary lists containing excruciating
Their Eyes Were Watching God
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I Am Malala
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Brave New World
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Charities step in to help some people leave on chartered planes, as well as via long, excruciating journeys on overcrowded trains and buses.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 22, 2026
She was floored by the revelation and, not least, the excruciating pain she was now beginning to fully understand.
From BBC ● Sep. 17, 2026
Ella can't remember when she first started grinding her teeth at night, but she can vividly recall the excruciating jaw ache, the headaches, and being told her molars were disappearing.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2026
The defective hemoglobin sticks to itself, causing normally flexible cells to stiffen into sickle shapes—a process sometimes called sickling—that block blood flow, damage organs and trigger excruciating pain.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 9, 2026
And he would stare at them, his head bowed under the weight of an excruciating hangover, and say, “What do you fellows think we ought to do?”
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
