Word.ws English Dictionary

agony

Syllables: ag·o·ni/ˈeɪ̯ɡ.ə.ni/UK/ˈæɡ.ə.ni/

agony noun: extreme pain or anguish.

Noun

agony (countable and uncountable, plural agonies)

  1. Extreme pain or anguish.
    • When the weight fell on her foot, she cried out in agony.
  2. The sufferings of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (often capitalized).
    • And being in an agonie, he prayed more earneſtly,[…].1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 22:44, column 1
  3. (dated) Violent contest or striving.
    • The world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations.1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter X, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans...
  4. (dated) Paroxysm of joy; keen emotion.
    • With cries and agonies of wild delight.1725, Homer, “Book X”, in [Alexander Pope], transl., The Odyssey of Homer. […], volume III, London: […] Bernard Lintot, →OCLC
  5. The last struggle of life; death struggle.

agony meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

agony in Tamil

வேதனை, சாத்துயர், மரணவேதனை, இயேசுநாதரின் திருவாதனை, கடுந்துயர், வாதனை

agony in Marathi

agony, anguish, pain
वेदना vedanā

agony in Urdu

عذاب, اذیت, جان کنی, کرب

agony in Bengali

তীব্র শারীরিক, মানসিক যন্ত্রণা, মরণযন্ত্রণা, নিদারুণ কষ্ট
More languagesFewer languages
agony in Telugu
బాధ bādha
agony in Malayalam
യാതന, വേദന, അർത്തി, ആർത്തി
agony in Kannada
ಹಿಂಸೆ hiṃse, ಕಿಚ್ಚು kiccu
agony in Odia
ମାଥ mātha
agony in Tagalog
hingalo, paghihingalo
agony in Arabic
أَلَم ʔalam, اِحْتِضَار iḥtiḍār

Examples of agony in a sentence

  • You should write in to the agony aunt; she'll sort it out for you.
  • I'm sick of everyone coming to me with their problems—I never wanted to be an agony aunt!
  • My shoulder was dislocated. It was agony to have it put to rights.

All 40 example sentences with agony

Synonyms of agony

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of agony

Forms of agony

pluralagonies

Plural of agony: agonies

Origin of agony

14th century, via Old French and Latin from Ancient Greek ἀγωνία (agōnía, “emulation, competition, struggle”), from ἀγών (agṓn, “contest”). Specifically of the struggle that precedes death (mortal agony) from the 1540s. By surface analysis, agon + -y. The sense of "extreme pain" from c. 1600.

Words formed from agony

Phrases with agony

Questions about agony

What does agony mean?
Agony means extreme pain or anguish.
What is agony in Tamil?
Agony in Tamil is வேதனை, சாத்துயர், மரணவேதனை. See Agony meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is agony?
Agony is a noun.
How do you pronounce agony?
Agony is pronounced /ˈæɡ.ə.ni/ (UK).
What is the plural of agony?
The plural of agony is agonies.

Words near agony in the dictionary

  1. agonous
  2. agonoxenid
  3. agonoxenids
  4. agonoxenine
  5. agons
  6. agony
  7. agony aunt
  8. agony auntie
  9. agony aunties
  10. agony aunts
  11. agony aunty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: agony (page history and authors); agony (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); वेदना (Marathi) (page history and authors); agony (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); agony (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); agony (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); ಕಿಚ್ಚು (Kannada) (page history and authors); ମାଥ (Odia) (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.

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

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