Throe
[θrəʊ]
Definition
(noun.) severe spasm of pain; 'the throes of dying'; 'the throes of childbirth'.
(noun.) hard or painful trouble or struggle; 'a country in the throes of economic collapse'.
Editor: Murdoch--From WordNet
Definition
(n.) Extreme pain; violent pang; anguish; agony; especially, one of the pangs of travail in childbirth, or purturition.
(n.) A tool for splitting wood into shingles; a frow.
(v. i.) To struggle in extreme pain; to be in agony; to agonize.
(v. t.) To put in agony.
Typist: Meg
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. Paroxysm (of extreme pain, especially in childbirth), fit, spasm, anguish, pang, agony.
Editor: Randolph
Definition
n. suffering pain: agony: the pains of childbirth.—v.i. to be in agony.—v.t. to put in agony.
Checked by Gerald
Examples
- A pang of exquisite suffering--a throe of true despair--rent and heaved my heart. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- The throes of a sort of moral earthquake were felt heaving under the hills of the northern counties. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- We all stood equal sharers of the last throes of time-worn nature. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- What Dryad was born of these throes? Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- I resolved to visit London, to see him; to quiet these agonizing throes by the sweet medicine of hope, or the opiate of despair. Mary Shelley. The Last Man.
- Indisposed to hesitate, and full of impatient impulses--soul and senses quivering with keen throes--I put it back and looked in. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- When, asked one of the women, will we enjoy the death throes of the red one? Edgar Rice Burroughs. A Princess of Mars.
Checked by Flossie