ordeal

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“
The young girl who on this day presented herself for the ordeal was an American, who, it seemed, had not carried her studies very far EXAMINING A PUPIL Mme.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun A difficult or painful experience, especially one that severely tests character or endurance. See Synonyms at trial.
  2. noun A method of trial in which the accused was subjected to physically painful or dangerous tests, the result being regarded as a divine judgment of guilt or innocence.

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Examples (50)

  • I advise you to make up your mind quickly and then your ordeal will be at an end Quite exhausted, the effects of the drug not having left her, again a wave of unconsciousness was sweeping over Katherine, making everything swim before her eyes.
  • One thing Bauer has learned through his ordeal is the importance of preventing bad things from getting worse. —  The Austin Daily Herald
  • Perhaps Schreiber's biggest mistake in the ordeal is approaching MTV about making a documentary on Muthana's saga, a film that will end up showcasing almost everyone involved in the ordeal looking somewhere between bad and really bad. —  TakePart Social Action Network™
  • Jason Wallace says the ordeal has been a nightmarish roller coaster of emotions.
  • All of the time and effort dealing with the ordeal has been a strain.
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Alteration (influenced by deal1) of Middle English ordal, trial by ordeal, from Old English ordāl; see dail- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English *ordel, ordal, from Anglo-Saxon ordēl, usually ordāl, ordeal (as defined), literally ‘judgment’(= Old Saxon urdēli = OFries. ordel, urdel = Dutch oordeel = Middle Low German ordēl = Old High German urteili, urteilī, urtēlī, urteila, urteil, Middle High German urteile, urteil, German urtheil, urteil, a judgment, decision), from or-, accented form of ar-, usually ā- (see a-), + dǣl, dāl, a part, deal (or rather the base of the orig. verb), with a suffix lost in Anglo-Saxon, but retained in Old Saxon and Old High German: see or- and deal. The technical use of the word, the disappearance of or- as a significant prefix, and the remoteness of the main element -deal from its etymology meaning, led to a separation of the word from its actual source, and its treatment as of Latin origin; hence the ordinary pron. in three syllables (as if the termination were like that of real, ideal, etc.), instead of the orig. two (ôr′dēl).
 

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/ˈɔrdəəl/
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