excruciate
Inflict severe pain
To excruciate is to cause intense suffering or anguish—to torture.
The word shares its root with crucify, and the pain it describes is extreme: The migraine excruciating her had lasted three days.
More common is the adjective excruciating, describing unbearable pain or, by extension, anything intensely unpleasant: excruciating boredom, excruciating awkwardness.
Extreme physical or emotional pain
- tormentSevere prolonged suffering
- anguishIntense mental suffering
- sufferingSustained experience of distress
- tortureDeliberate infliction of suffering
rack · afflict · distress · writhe · unbearable · searing · intense · piercing
agony
Extreme physical or emotional pain
- tormentSevere prolonged suffering
- anguishIntense mental suffering
- sufferingSustained experience of distress
torture · rack · afflict · distress · writhe · unbearable · searing · intense · piercing · throbbing
heartbreak
Crushing emotional pain
sorrow · misery · heartache · trauma · devastation · torment · desolation · woe · suffering · affliction
rack
Frame for holding items
whip · torment · inflict · punish · interrogate · persecute · victimize · brutalize · ordeal · inquisition