AGONIZE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does agonize mean? 

• AGONIZE (verb)
  The verb AGONIZE has 2 senses:

1. cause to agonize

2. suffer agony or anguish

  Familiarity information: AGONIZE used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AGONIZE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they agonize    ... he / she / it agonizes   
Past simple: agonized   
Past participle: agonized   
-ing form: agonizing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause to agonize

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

agonise; agonize

Hypernyms (to "agonize" is one way to...):

anguish; hurt; pain (cause emotional anguish or make miserable)

Cause:

agonise; agonize (suffer agony or anguish)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The bad news will agonize him

Sense 2

Meaning:

Suffer agony or anguish

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Synonyms:

agonise; agonize

Hypernyms (to "agonize" is one way to...):

suffer (experience (emotional) pain)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

agony (a state of acute pain)

 Context examples 

In point of fact, the chief vent to this primal melancholy has been religion in its more agonizing forms.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Nor would you, or, rather, should you, accept the ravings and writhings and agonized contortions of those two lunatics to-night as a convincing portrayal of love.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I never, never should have got over such a agonizing mortification.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Dare I ask Mr. T. to endeavour to step in between Mr. Micawber and his agonized family?

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

In mid air, just as his jaws were about to close on the man, he received a shock that checked his body and brought his teeth together with an agonizing clip.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

All the woes of tortured life, all its stupendous indictment of high heaven, its innumerable sorrows, seemed to be centered and condensed into that one dreadful, agonized cry.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“He, at least, after the customary agonizing of youth, found content and made of his materialism a joyous thing.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Eighty feet beneath, I could see the agonized strain of his muscles as he gripped for very life.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The pain from my hurt knee was agonizing.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)