Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A severe pang or spasm of pain, as in childbirth. synonym: pain.
  • noun A condition of extreme difficulty or trouble.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See throw.
  • noun A violent pang; hence, pain; anguish; suffering; agony: particularly applied to the anguish of travail in childbirth or parturition.
  • noun Effort.
  • To agonize; struggle in extreme pain; be in agony.
  • To pain; put in agony.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To struggle in extreme pain; to be in agony; to agonize.
  • noun Extreme pain; violent pang; anguish; agony; especially, one of the pangs of travail in childbirth, or purturition.
  • noun A tool for splitting wood into shingles; a frow.
  • transitive verb rare To put in agony.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A pang, spasm.
  • noun A hard struggle.
  • verb transitive To put in agony.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun hard or painful trouble or struggle
  • noun severe spasm of pain

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English throwe, thrawe, partly from Old English thrāwu, variant of thrēa, chastisement, affliction, pang, and probably also partly from Old English thōwian, to suffer, and partly from Old Norse thrā, hard struggle.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English throwe, perhaps from Old English þrēa, thrawu ("threat"). This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology.

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Examples

  • A public licking for the throe was the least they could expect.

    Stalky & Co. Rudyard Kipling 1900

  • Something was happening in the mind of the poet, the "funeral in my brain", the volcanic "throe".

    The Economist: Correspondent's diary 2010

  • And then, in the midst of the bitterest throe, came a great visioning.

    The Kempton-Wace Letters 2010

  • And he felt the stir in him, like a throe of yearning pain, of the desire to paint these visions that flashed unsummoned on the mirror of his mind.

    Chapter 10 2010

  • They say that in his death-throe he arose and facing some great, ghostly choir raised his last baton, while all around the massive silence rang with the last mist-music of his dying ears.

    DARKWATER W.E.B. DU BOIS 2004

  • But he want be able to throe her under a bus, to the back of the bus, to the front of the bus, or in front of the bus.

    Clinton challenges Obama to Lincoln-Douglas style debate 2008

  • You probably want to throe out all the votes that werent for Hillary in michigan right? so much for the champion of the voters, this is just greed mary cleveland, ohio

    Full Michigan delegation with half-vote to be seated by Dems 2008

  • You throe one thing than another you end up with a third lose thing that is different that the first two things once the right time passes.

    Art 108 Exam 2009

  • With the above typed, I think BO in his final obamacare death throe this week will try and resell the same bag of junk, in incremental form, with alot of zesty new age words in a way that attempts to convince congress that this is doable.

    Daily Kos Comments on Obama Dropping the Public Option - Dan_Perrin’s blog - RedState 2009

  • And then a throe overswept her and she brought her knees up toward her belly and her eyes squeezed shut.

    Wildfire Sarah Micklem 2009

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