As a noun, anguish is extreme pain or suffering, especially emotional pain. As a verb, it means to suffer deeply or to cause someone to suffer deeply.
From Old French 'angusse', from Latin 'angustia' meaning 'narrowness' or 'distress', related to a root meaning 'to tighten'. The idea is of being squeezed or pressed by pain.
So many emotion words—anguish, anxiety, angst—come from roots about tightness and squeezing. It’s a reminder that intense feelings show up in your body first, long before you put them into words.
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