excruciate
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to inflict severe pain upon; torture.
The headache excruciated him.
-
to cause mental anguish to; irritate greatly.
verb
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to inflict mental suffering on; torment
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obsolete to inflict physical pain on; torture
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of excruciate
1560–70; < Latin excruciātus, past participle of excruciāre to torment, torture, equivalent to ex- ex- 1 + cruciāre to torment, crucify (derivative of crux cross); see -ate 1
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:
"He will be vulgarly stuck up, and excruciate me with every French word he attempts to pronounce."
From Magnum Bonum by Charlotte Mary Yonge
"You didn't excruciate my wrist so like time!" groaned Bill.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 by Various
"And your bilious eyes and eyelids full of crows' feet, and the gout and the rheumatism which excruciate you?—those horrid spiders which are weaving their threads in the muscles of your calves?"
From Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches by William Jesse
Her presence used to excruciate Osborne; but go she would upon all parties of pleasure on which she heard her young friends were bent.
From Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
“Zama,” a brief, indelible novel by the Argentinean writer Antonio Di Benedetto, is a work of waiting—of enforced lassitude, excruciated anticipation, and final frustration.
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 15, 2017
The speaker is Tithonus himself, in love with Dawn but excruciated to be held captive to yet another day.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 5, 2016
He was excruciated with her burlesque, tried to drag her to her feet, but he had only one hand and he could not manage her.
From The Cup of Fury A Novel of Cities and Shipyards by Henry Raleigh
He was always pleasant, and he let me play on his guitar, though he swore it excruciated him.
From London Pride Or When the World Was Younger by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon
He mentioned Dr. Clarke, and Bishop Bramhall on Liberty and Necessity, and bid me read South's Sermons on Prayer; but avoided the question which has excruciated philosophers and divines, beyond any other.
From Life of Johnson, Volume 2 1765-1776 by George Birkbeck Norman Hill
The wait for the Dodger Stadium Express or a rideshare pickup, and the slog out of the stadium and along Sunset Boulevard, can be excruciating.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 9, 2026
Schmidt, an entomologist who specialized in insect defenses, created the sting-pain index which ranks stings from a harmless 0 to an excruciating 4.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
Plus, this excruciating level of oversight likely isn’t personal, says Tessa West, a psychology professor at New York University and the author of “Jerks at Work: Toxic Coworkers and What to Do About Them.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026
From the age of 13, when she started her periods, she was plagued by excruciating pain but she was only finally diagnosed with endometriosis when she was 25.
From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026
Unable to glide smoothly through capillaries and veins, sickled red cells jammed into microscopic clots throughout the body, interrupting blood flow and precipitating the excruciating pain of a sickling crisis.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
