Word.ws English Dictionary

ordeals

Syllables: or·deals/ɔːˈdiːəls/

ordeals is the plural of ordeal.

Meaning of ordeal

Noun

ordeal (plural ordeals)

  1. (historical) A trial in which the accused was subjected to a dangerous test (such as ducking in water), divine authority deciding the guilt of the accused.
    • trial by ordeal
  2. (figuratively) A painful or trying experience.
    • “And do you realize that in a few shakes I've got to show up at dinner and have Mrs Cream being very, very kind to me? It hurts the pride of the Woosters, Jeeves.” “My advice, sir, would be to fortify yourself for the ordeal.” “How?” “There are always cocktails, sir. Should I pour you another?”...1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XXI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
  3. The poisonous ordeal bean or Calabar bean.

Questions about ordeals

What is ordeals the plural of?
Ordeals is the plural of ordeal.
How do you pronounce ordeals?
Ordeals is pronounced /ɔːˈdiːəls/.

Words near ordeals in the dictionary

  1. ordeal
  2. ordeal bean
  3. ordeal beans
  4. ordeal tree
  5. ordeal trees
  6. ordeals
  7. ordenance
  8. Ordensstaat
  9. order
  10. order about
  11. order arms

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ordeals (page history and authors); ordeal (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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Cite this entry: “ordeals.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ordeals. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.