Word.ws English Dictionary

agonized

/ˈæ.ɡən.aɪzd/

agonized is the alternative spelling of agonised.

agonized is the simple past and past participle of agonize.

Meaning of agonised

Adjective

agonised (comparative more agonised, superlative most agonised)

  1. Experiencing agony
    Synonyms:
    tortured, agonised/agonized, tormented

Meaning of agonize

Verb

agonize (third-person singular simple present agonizes, present participle agonizing, simple past and past participle agonized)

  1. (intransitive) To writhe with agony; to suffer violent anguish.
    • His Touch, if tremblingly alive all o’er, / To smart, and agonize at ev’ry pore?1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], epistle I, London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC, page 13, lines 223–24
  2. (intransitive, literary) To struggle; to wrestle; to strive desperately, whether mentally or physically.
    • So I took a last stare round, agonizing to see if there was any way of escape; but the stone walls and roof were solid enough to crush me, and the stack of casks too closely packed to hide more than a rat.[1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    fret
  3. (transitive) To cause agony or anguish in someone.
    • That dreadful bill […] was one of the chief torments of her life. At all hours of the night or day it was waiting just round the corner of her consciousness, ready to spring upon her and agonise her […]1935, George Orwell, A Clergyman’s Daughter, page 8
  4. (transitive) To act as an agonist upon; to combine with a receptor on a cell to produce a physiological reaction.

Synonyms of agonized

Antonyms

Forms of agonized

comparativemore agonized
superlativemost agonized

Words formed from agonized

Questions about agonized

What is agonized the alternative spelling of?
Agonized is the alternative spelling of agonised.
How do you pronounce agonized?
Agonized is pronounced /ˈæ.ɡən.aɪzd/.

Words near agonized in the dictionary

  1. agonistics
  2. agonists
  3. agonization
  4. agonizations
  5. agonize
  6. agonized
  7. agonizedly
  8. agonizer
  9. agonizers
  10. agonizes
  11. agonizeth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: agonized (page history and authors); agonised (page history and authors); agonize (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-agonized.ogg.

Cite this entry: “agonized.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/agonized. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.