What's the difference between agony and excruciation?

Agony


Definition:

  • (n.) Violent contest or striving.
  • (n.) Pain so extreme as to cause writhing or contortions of the body, similar to those made in the athletic contests in Greece; and hence, extreme pain of mind or body; anguish; paroxysm of grief; specifically, the sufferings of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane.
  • (n.) Paroxysm of joy; keen emotion.
  • (n.) The last struggle of life; death struggle.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "The new feminine ideal is of egg-smooth perfection from hairline to toes," she writes, describing the exquisite agony of having her fingers, arms, back, buttocks and nostrils waxed.
  • (2) It has been awfully hard-won, carved slowly out of a big block of human agony.
  • (3) Her agony and her rapture stay interior, and they flip-flop like nerves in this beautiful, grave black-and-white movie.
  • (4) Those who remember the Two Davids of the 1987 SDP-Liberal Alliance will recall the exquisite agony only too well, cruelly captured by the Spitting Image puppet of little Steel perched in big Owen's pocket.
  • (5) Using male and female Wistar rats, pituitary response to cardiac and respiratory failure type (CFT and RFT) sudden death caused by the intravenous administration of KC1 and SCC, respectively, was examined by analyzing variation in pituitary immunoreactive beta-endorphin (IR-beta-EP) levels determined by radioimmunoassay after death and in circulating IR-beta-EP levels during periods of agony.
  • (6) I was in the surgical ward at Westmorland General Hospital on Kendal Green, and it was agony.
  • (7) I'd go after work and he'd paint till 1 or 1.30 in the morning, and it was agony lying there on the floor.
  • (8) Evidently fuelled by the agony of losing a series twelve months ago when the trophy was almost within their grasp, they also had the teamwork, technique and experience to turn their quest for revenge into a reality.
  • (9) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Even those who’ve never seen a downhill ski race couldn’t help but sympathise with Bode Miller’s agony at missing out on a medal in what will surely be the last Olympic event of his career.
  • (10) "When the disaster was big enough," King writes, "agony and violent death had an enriching quality."
  • (11) Even at UCH, when no one was there for us and my father, having not slept for almost 30 hours, was pulling his hair out in agony, I tried to look at it all as a kind of comedy of errors."
  • (12) They were subject, of course, to the prison censor, but the agony over Winnie, and the passion of which that agony was a product, blazes through them.
  • (13) That he ended up in the dock in The Hague at all surprised many who have studied the man and his country's agony through the 1990s.
  • (14) Shawcross, however, maintains there was no bad intent and said for that reason he has not been tormenting himself about the moment he collided with Ramsey's right leg and left the teenager writhing in agony.
  • (15) He notes the uneven agony - 80% will land in developing countries.
  • (16) The poor animals are thrown back into the water to die in agony, a practice condemned by environmental campaigners.
  • (17) The rest was pure agony for the Australians, give or take a yellow card for Sonny Bill Williams, given for a dangerous tackle.
  • (18) The woman before you in agony pushing and pushing, losing all dignity, does not care one bit whether I am feeling alarmed at her screaming, worried about where I should be standing, wondering whether I should rub her back or try and make small talk between contractions.
  • (19) Litvinenko sipped “three or four times” from a cup of radioactive tea, and died in agony 23 days later, the inquiry heard last week.
  • (20) Our most excruciating agony is of not being noticed in the world.

Excruciation


Definition:

  • (n.) The act of inflicting agonizing pain, or the state of being thus afflicted; that which excruciates; torture.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A 33-year old woman was admitted with high fever and excruciating pain in the lower right abdomen that had lasted on and off for months.
  • (2) However, after her diagnosis, it became my occupation to know everything about her ailment because I was her caregiver during her excruciating decline.
  • (3) It is an excruciating fly-on-the-wall witness to Allison's vainglory, Swales's self-regard for his own leadership qualities and the poor young players' overpromoted helplessness.
  • (4) Another great feature of the panda, at least as far as Chairman Mao Zedong and his followers were concerned, was that the rest of the world, particularly the west, had become obsessed by its excruciatingly cute looks and behaviour.
  • (5) Far from being relaxed, I feel excruciatingly uncomfortable and begin to wonder if my jaw is malfunctioning.
  • (6) (Mail Online goes into excruciating detail on the methods Williams used, but does so in the body copy of an article.)
  • (7) The film charts in excruciating detail the collapse of a political career and, ultimately, of a marriage.
  • (8) One more win now, one more good performance against the sort of team they have swatted aside all season, and the long, often excruciating wait will be over: City will be champions.
  • (9) In the very act of describing sex as an incidental, you create an excruciating sex scene.
  • (10) Our most excruciating agony is of not being noticed in the world.
  • (11) An effective piece of propaganda at the time, it makes pretty excruciating viewing now that we know what happens next.
  • (12) With Foord having lost his entire leg, including his hip, even getting him out of bed and sitting in his wheelchair was excruciating.
  • (13) "The timing is excruciating for whomever wins the next election."
  • (14) A women who has been infibulated suffers great difficulty and pain during sexual intercourse, which can be excruciating if a neuroma has formed at the point of section of the dorsal nerve of the clitoris.
  • (15) During the first postoperative week little pain was experienced by 60% of the patients, considerable pain by 35% and excruciating pain by 5% of the patients being interviewed.
  • (16) Yet if I tell you I’ve had a chronic illness since early childhood that is known for excruciating pain, for causing immobility and secondary – sometimes life-threatening – conditions, does that change your view of my suicide attempt?
  • (17) As well as being a pallid substitute for actual creativity – a device for making grey business wonks mistake themselves for David Bowie at his experimental peak – these books are the direct suit-and-tie office-dick equivalent of those embarrassing motivational self-help tomes that prey on the insecure, promising to turn their life around before dissolving into a blancmange of "strategies" and "systems" and above all excruciating metaphors.
  • (18) Perhaps it signifies an end to those media appearances in which politicians share the contents of their iPods or talk, excruciatingly, about their love of whatever indie band their aide has decided they should like, in an attempt to persuade voters they're young and fun.
  • (19) The real importance of Thomas Piketty's blockbuster, Capital in the 21st Century , is that it demonstrates, in excruciating detail (and this remains true despite some predictable petty squabbling) that, in the case of at least one core equation, the numbers simply don't add up .
  • (20) The disease is often serious and can cause excruciating pain in the joints and other parts of the body.

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