excruciate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to inflict severe pain upon; torture.
The headache excruciated him.
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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.
"You didn't excruciate my wrist so like time!" groaned Bill.
From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 by Various
"He will be vulgarly stuck up, and excruciate me with every French word he attempts to pronounce."
From Magnum Bonum by Yonge, Charlotte Mary
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 Thackeray, William Makepeace
"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 Jesse, William
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.
