excruciating
part of speech
adjective; verb form (excruciate — rare)
meaning for a pupil
1) Extremely painful. tree →
2) (informal) Terribly embarrassing, boring or awkward, so that you can hardly bear it. tree →
sense in the lessons
Sense 1 is used for real pain (an excruciating toothache, broken bone). Sense 2 is a common exaggeration in everyday talk: «excruciating embarrassment», «an excruciating speech». In safety lessons, excruciating pain is a reason to get help quickly.
examples
- The pain in his broken leg was excruciating. tree →
- She had an excruciating toothache all night. tree →
- The wait for the test results was excruciating. tree →
- It was excruciating when Dad danced at my party. tree →
- The speech was so long and boring it was excruciating. tree →
- Stinging nettles can be painful, but a wasp sting can be excruciating. tree →
note
Adjective; pronounced ex-KROO-shee-ay-ting. It comes from Latin for «torture» or «cross». It is a strong word; save it for very bad pain or very bad embarrassment. The adverb is «excruciatingly».
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «excruciating» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.