Anguish

How to spell anguish

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce anguish

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anguish mean?

1. nounSevere mental or physical suffering or distress.
2. verbTo suffer severe distress, or to cause someone such distress.

Anguish in a sentence

• noun

  The family waited in anguish for news of the missing climber.

• verb

  Parents often anguish over decisions that affect their children's future.

• noun

  Her diary recorded the anguish of those long months in hospital.

• verb

  Investors continue to anguish about the falling value of their savings.

Where does anguish come from?

Language of origin: French

This word reaches English from the Latin angustia, meaning 'narrowness' or 'a tight place', which itself grew from angere, 'to choke, squeeze, or cause distress'. The Romans used the imagery of physical tightness in the throat or chest to describe emotional torment, and that vivid sense of being squeezed by grief travelled into Old French as anguisse before arriving in English around the 1200s. The same angere root sits behind a whole family of distress words, including 'anxious', 'anger', and even 'angina', the chest condition named for its choking tightness. The unusual 'gu' in the middle is a fossil of the French spelling, where the 'u' kept the 'g' hard, and it is exactly the spot where modern writers hesitate. Remembering that anguish literally pictures a narrowing, throat-tightening pain helps fix both the meaning and the awkward letters.

How the word is built

• angu- (from Latin angustia: narrowness, tightness)
• -ish (noun-forming ending via French)