afflict

[uh-flikt]

verb (used with object)

1. to distress with mental or bodily pain; trouble greatly or grievously.

   to be afflicted with migraine headaches.

   Synonyms: plague, torment, harass, vex

2. Obsolete.

   1. to overthrow; defeat.

   2. to humble.

afflict

/ əˈflɪkt /

verb

1. (tr) to cause suffering or unhappiness to; distress greatly

Other Word Forms

• afflicter noun
• overafflict verb (used with object)
• preafflict verb (used with object)
• self-afflicting adjective
• unafflicting adjective
• afflictive adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of afflict¹

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English afflicten, from Latin afflīctus “distressed,” past participle of afflīgere “to cast down” ( af- af- + flīg- “knock” + -tus past participle suffix); replacing Middle English aflight, from Middle French aflit, from Latin; inflict

Word History and Origins

Origin of afflict¹

C14: from Latin afflictus, past participle of afflīgere to knock against, from flīgere to knock, to strike

Example Sentences

We see the brothers standing in the center, unharmed; the flames reaching out to afflict everyone around them; and the observers on high looking perplexed.

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I think if you look at sort of notions of Christian morality, it also goes to notions of sort of innocence, being afflicted by demonic forces.

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Catholicism is the faith I was baptized in, the one I embraced as a teen and that’s the bedrock for my moral code of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

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It solves what I might call the Brennan problem, which afflicts officials who might otherwise have to spend their natural lives ducking and weaving about what they did in office.

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Reducing the witches’ brew of tribal conflict, social disintegration, jihadist insurgency and religious violence afflicting that country to a charge of Christian genocide misses the complexity and scale of the horror.

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Related Words

• annoy 
• beset 
• bother 
• burden 
• oppress 
• plague 
• rack 
• torment 
• torture 
• wound