What's the difference between excruciating and harrowing?

Excruciating


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Excruciate
  • () Torturing; racking.

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.

Harrowing


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Harrow

Example Sentences:

  • (1) 7.13pm BST The starting XIs England: Hart (Oxford University), Walker (Barnes), Cahill (Harrow Chequers), Jagielka (Cambridge University), Baines (1st Surrey Rifles), Wilshere (Old Harrovians), Gerrard (Wanderers), Walcott (Swifts), Cleverley (Old Carthusians), Welbeck (Royal Engineers), Rooney (Old Etonians).
  • (2) A student who lost her leg in the Alton Towers rollercoaster crash says she has been given a new lease of life by a hi-tech prosthetic leg and that she is stronger for her harrowing experience.
  • (3) Arredondo's story appears equally dramatic and harrowing.
  • (4) There are some deeply harrowing cases, a lot of people will be disclosing sexual violence and for many of them they won’t have told anyone else before.
  • (5) Police Scotland have confirmed that they will contact MP Michelle Thomson after she moved colleagues to tears in the Commons on Thursday when she revealed harrowing details of her rape at the age of 14 and its subsequent impact on her life.
  • (6) Copper levels were elevated to the normal range in both dietary groups of the Gujerati and were similar to the concentrations found in the Harrow groups.
  • (7) The inquest heard at times harrowing detail about how gangs of local teenagers and children, some as young as 10, had the family "under siege".
  • (8) Dietary intake of 813 pregnant Harrow Asians of mainly Gujarati descent was compared with the intake of 54 pregnant Europeans living in the same area.
  • (9) We would not wish any other families to go through this harrowing experience and appeal to everyone to keep calm and show their respect in a peaceful manner."
  • (10) An already grim night for United might have been even more harrowing if the referee, Martin Atkinson, had taken action against Marouane Fellaini for embedding his studs in the back of James McCarthy's leg.
  • (11) For Liverpool it has been a harrowing, valedictory year, the kind that deserves a send-off, and they had one here even in defeat.
  • (12) The trailer comprises a harrowing clip from the film in which the sniper must choose whether to gun down an Iraqi woman and child who appear to be mounting a suicide attack, interspersed with flashbacks to the soldier’s life in America with his own wife and children.
  • (13) Bosnia-Herzegovina Aligned to Eurovision's Balkan Bloc Harrowingly for Greece, there is a rival Balkan Bloc entry and hurrah, the song is in the local language.
  • (14) He said: “Among the horror of the refugee crisis, one of the most harrowing images has been the thousands of orphaned children fleeing conflict.” “Britain has always been a compassionate and welcoming country, and I am delighted that the government has finally, after months of pressure, committed to vital humanitarian aid.
  • (15) A high prevalence of iron deficiency was found in apparently healthy Asian immigrant children in Harrow.
  • (16) Perhaps the most harrowing part for Manchester City amid all the regrets and raw disappointment is the way large parts of this game seemed to pass them by.
  • (17) Some case notes make harrowing reading: cells occupied by disabled prisoners with no wall bars and inmates having to drag themselves across the floor and falling frequently; PAS "having to make a fuss" to get inmates supplied with basic needs, such as walking sticks, which are then taken away when a prisoner moves prison; and an incontinent prisoner with mental health problems sleeping naked on a urine-soaked mattress.
  • (18) Lorraine's life story reads like the harrowing epilogue to one of Dunbar's plays.
  • (19) Throughout this tournament, the striker with a bowl-cut straight out of Hull circa 1986 has lead the line superbly, made perceptive runs, found excellent scoring positions ... and squandered more opportunities than a boy who's been expelled from Eton, Harrow and every other fee-paying school in the land.
  • (20) The emir of Qatar , the world's richest country per capita, is poised to hand over power to his Harrow-educated son and heir in a rare peaceful transition for the tiny but globally influential Gulf state.