ordeal
Americannoun
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ordeals
plural
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any extremely severe or trying test, experience, or trial.
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a primitive form of trial to determine guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to fire, poison, or other serious danger, the result being regarded as a divine or preternatural judgment.
noun
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a severe or trying experience
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history a method of trial in which the guilt or innocence of an accused person was determined by subjecting him to physical danger, esp by fire or water. The outcome was regarded as an indication of divine judgment
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of ordeal
before 950; Middle English ordal, Old English ordāl; cognate with Dutch oordeel, German Urteil. See a- 3, dole 1
Explanation
An ordeal is something difficult or painful to go through. Something kind of hard like taking a test can be an ordeal, but often an ordeal is a serious and long-lasting event, like an illness or tragedy. When you go through an ordeal you have to deal with something tough. Waiting for someone you love to recover from an injury and come home from the hospital is an ordeal — for both of you — and being a victim of a crime is a different kind of ordeal. You can use this noun in an exaggerated way, too, as when you endure the long ordeal of cleaning the garage on a sunny weekend.
Vocabulary lists containing ordeal
List 4
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A Thousand Splendid Suns
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Tuck Everlasting
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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.
See Examples For:
Breast cancer is not included in France's official list of occupational diseases, meaning that obtaining recognition can be a lengthy and difficult ordeal for patients.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
"No-one should have to go through what I did after having a baby," said Natalie after a harrowing post-birth ordeal.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
For decades, the ordeal was a family taboo, something Lin only learned about later in his life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
During the ordeal, he said that God presented himself to him.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 7, 2026
Boynton disapproved of his cousin's treatment throughout the ordeal.
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
In the climatic entry in Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s Icelandic trilogy about a boy’s passage through ordeals on land and sea, the battered young hero takes refuge in a village.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026
I never forgot how lucky I am to be here considering the horrors she experienced during World War II and her ordeals trying to give us a good life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 23, 2026
Bobruiko now helps document the ordeals of other detained civilians and works with an NGO called "Numo, Sestry!" or Come on, my sisters!
From Barron's ● May 8, 2026
The ordeals, great and small, that the shutdown had triggered for many Americans will end.
From BBC ● Nov. 10, 2025
One of my Sunday morning ordeals is having to lie in bed and look at Dussel’s back when he’s praying.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
Definitions 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.
