ordeal
Americannoun
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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
Etymology
Origin of ordeal
before 950; Middle English ordal, Old English ordāl; cognate with Dutch oordeel, German Urteil. See a- 3, dole 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.
The family of a teenager who died in a car crash have described their "unimaginable" ordeal after being mistakenly told their son had survived.
From BBC
He displays a remarkable lack of bitterness and enormous dignity, given his ordeal by newspaper.
More details of their ordeals have since emerged in the days since Monday morning.
From BBC
He was still wearing what he slept in — black shorts and a T-shirt — when the agents arrested him, he told The Times in his first interview with a news outlet since his ordeal began.
From Los Angeles Times
It’s a culmination of the themes that the director has discussed across his body of work, conveyed here in the reflective and gripping ordeal of a regular man standing for what he believes in.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
