ORDEAL

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ordeal mean? 

• ORDEAL (noun)
  The noun ORDEAL has 2 senses:

1. a severe or trying experience

2. a primitive method of determining a person's guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under divine control; escape was usually taken as a sign of innocence

  Familiarity information: ORDEAL used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ORDEAL (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A severe or trying experience

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("ordeal" is a kind of...):

experience (an event as apprehended)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A primitive method of determining a person's guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under divine control; escape was usually taken as a sign of innocence

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

ordeal; trial by ordeal

Hypernyms ("ordeal" is a kind of...):

trial ((law) the determination of a person's innocence or guilt by due process of law)

 Context examples 

I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It is used as an ordeal poison by the medicine-men in certain districts of West Africa and is kept as a secret among them.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She had nerved herself for the last culminating ordeal, and his remark was like a blow to her self-possession.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

In ten minutes Jo came running downstairs with a very red face and the general appearance of a person who had just passed through a trying ordeal of some sort.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal before us.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

"Don't get excited when you talk," Ruth admonished Martin, before the ordeal of introduction began.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Perchance Sir Nigel, with his love of all the dying usages of chivalry, might have contrived some strange ordeal or feat of arms by which his love should be put to the test.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This ordeal made me obsessed with giving my children a better, easier way to learn than I had—a good education as a student in school.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

To many in those ancient days the tourney may have seemed a bloody and brutal ordeal, but we who look at it with ample perspective see that it was a rude but gallant preparation for the conditions of life in an iron age.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They knew it. And they knew, so far as they were concerned, that the ordeal had just begun.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)