Word.ws English Dictionary

anguish

Syllables: an·guish/ˈæŋ.ɡwɪʃ/

anguish noun: extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress; an emotional state caused by intense misery or suffering.

anguish: extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress; an emotional state caused by intense...
Image: August Friedrich Albert Schenck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

anguish (countable and uncountable, plural anguishes)

  1. Extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress; an emotional state caused by intense misery or suffering.
    • It took years to overcome the anguish from my wife's death.
    • So, ye miserable people; you must go to God in anguishes, and make your prayer to him.1549, Hugh Latimer, "The Third Sermon Preached before King Edward VI
    Antonyms:
    bliss

Verb

anguish (third-person singular simple present anguishes, present participle anguishing, simple past and past participle anguished)

  1. (intransitive) To suffer pain.
    • We’re leaving these shores for our time has come, the days of our youth must now end. The hearts bitter anguish, it burns for the home that we’ll never see again.c. 1900s, Kl. Knigge, Iceland Folk Song, traditional, Harmony: H. Ruland
  2. (transitive) To cause to suffer pain.

Proper noun capitalized: Anguish

Anguish

  1. A surname.
    • Edmund Anguish of Somerleighton1698 December 29, record from Thorington, printed in 1884 Thomas Smythe Hill, The registers of the parish of Thorington, page 56
    • By request, Mr. Anguish, who is an expert on comb honey, was asked to give some points on its production: Mr. Anguish uses a divisible brood chamber. […]1907, Canadian Bee Journal, volumes 15-16, page 70
  2. (rare) A male given name.
    • […] been ready and willing to take one of the children by her husband, not being the eldest, to live with her; and that she did afterwards fix upon one of such children, named Anguish, and did request her husband to permit the said child to reside and live with her, […] and the defendant futher...1819, “Durant v Titley”, in Francis Joseph Troubat, George Price, editors, Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Exchequer, published 1835, page 231

anguish meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

anguish in Tamil

மிகுந்த வருத்தம், வேதனை, பொறுக்கமாட்டாத வலி, சாத்துயர், மனநோய், கடுந்துயரம்

anguish in Marathi

anguish, distress
संताप santāp

anguish in Urdu

الم, عذاب, بےچینی, کرب, کوفت, رنج

anguish in Bengali

anguish, affliction
দহন dohon
anguish
আজাব ajab
More languagesFewer languages
anguish in Malayalam
സംത്രാസം, മനോവിഷമം
anguish in Kannada
ದುಃಖ, ವ್ಯಥೆ, ಯಾತನೆ, ಸಂಕಟ
anguish in Punjabi
ਬਿਰਹਾ birhā, ਕਲੇਸ਼ kaleś
anguish in Sanskrit
परिदाह paridāha
anguish in Indonesian
tersiksa, menyiksa
anguish in Persian
غم ġam
anguish in Thai
ความทุกข์ทรมาน, ทุกข์ทรมาน túk-tɔɔ-rá-maan, เจ็บปวด jèp-bpùuat, ทรมาน tɔɔ-rá-maan

Examples of anguish in a sentence

  • But they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 6:9:
  • A terrible scream—a prolonged yell of horror and anguish—burst out of the silence of the moor.1889, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles:

All 39 example sentences with anguish

Synonyms of anguish

23 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of anguish

Forms of anguish

Noun
pluralanguishes
Verb
third-person singular presentanguishes
present participleanguishing
past participleanguished
pastanguished

Past tense of anguish: anguished

Plural of anguish: anguishes

Origin of anguish

From Middle English angwissh, anguishe, angoise, from Anglo-Norman anguise, anguisse, from Old French angoisse, from Latin angustia (“narrowness, scarcity, difficulty, distress”), from angustus (“narrow, difficult”), from angere (“to press together, cause pain, distress”). See angst, the Germanic cognate, and anger.

From Middle English angwischen, anguis(s)en, from Old French angoissier, anguissier, from the noun (see Etymology 1).

The given name, most famously borne by the character of King Anguish of Ireland, is thought to be a variant of Aengus/Angus, from Irish. The surname is probably also a variant of Angus.

Words formed from anguish

Phrases with anguish

Words that rhyme with anguish

Questions about anguish

What does anguish mean?
Anguish means extreme pain, either of body or mind; excruciating distress; an emotional state caused by intense misery or suffering.
What is anguish in Tamil?
Anguish in Tamil is மிகுந்த வருத்தம், வேதனை, பொறுக்கமாட்டாத வலி. See Anguish meaning in Tamil.
How do you use anguish in a sentence?
But they hearkened not unto Moses for anguish of spirit, and for cruel bondage.
What part of speech is anguish?
Anguish can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce anguish?
Anguish is pronounced /ˈæŋ.ɡwɪʃ/.
What is the plural of anguish?
The plural of anguish is anguishes.

Words near anguish in the dictionary

  1. anguinous
  2. anguiped
  3. anguipede
  4. anguipedes
  5. anguipeds
  6. anguish
  7. anguished
  8. anguishedly
  9. anguishes
  10. anguishful
  11. anguishing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anguish (page history and authors); Anguish (page history and authors); anguish (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); संताप (Marathi) (page history and authors); anguish (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); আজাব (Bengali) (page history and authors); anguish (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); anguish (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਕਲੇਸ਼ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); परिदाह (Sanskrit) (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-anguish.ogg.

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