Plural/third-person singular form of anguish; intense feelings of suffering or agony, or the act of suffering greatly.
From Old French 'anguisse,' derived from Latin 'angustia' (narrowness, distress). The connection is that extreme distress feels like being squeezed or confined in a narrow space—the 'angustia' is literally tightness.
The word 'anguish' comes from the same Latin root as 'narrow'—because emotional pain was imagined as a tightening or strangling feeling! This shows how ancient people described psychological suffering using physical sensations of constriction.
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