The Collaborative International Dictionary
Afflicting \Af*flict"ing\, a. Grievously painful; distressing; afflictive; as, an afflicting event. -- Af*flict"ing*ly, adv.
Afflict \Af*flict"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Afflicted; p. pr. & vb. n. Afflicting.] [L. afflictus, p. p. of affigere to cast down, deject; ad + fligere to strike: cf. OF. aflit, afflict, p. p. Cf. Flagellate.]
To strike or cast down; to overthrow. [Obs.] ``Reassembling our afflicted powers.''
--Milton.-
To inflict some great injury or hurt upon, causing continued pain or mental distress; to trouble grievously; to torment.
They did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens.
--Exod. i. 11.That which was the worst now least afflicts me.
--Milton. -
To make low or humble. [Obs.]
--Spenser.Men are apt to prefer a prosperous error before an afflicted truth.
--Jer. Taylor.Syn: To trouble; grieve; pain; distress; harass; torment; wound; hurt.
Wiktionary
vb. (present participle of afflict English)
Usage examples of "afflicting".
Instead, their grandson became the target of the unseen forces afflicting the household.
We should then be brought to acknowledge that it behooves a Christian traveller to crave the assistance of Him who can enable us to suffer with becoming fortitude and resignation all the afflicting dispensations of life, rather than desire to be preserved from meeting them.
My heart is much affected in having to commence my journal on a foreign shore by recording such an afflicting event.
Most of the illnesses going about, Zachary, are afflicting the famished and the feeble.
For all wounds, bruises, sprains, bee-stings, insect and snake-bites, frost-bites, chilblains, caked breast, swollen glands, rheumatism, and, in short, for any and all ailments, whether afflicting man or beast, requiring a direct external application, either to allay inflammation or soothe pain, the Extract of Smart-weed cannot be excelled.
The truly afflicting condition in which the remains of an army called triumphant were plunged, produced, as might well be expected, a corresponding impression on the mind of the General-in-Chief.
Lavinia an account so afflicting of Eugenia, as nearly to annihilate even this deep personal distress.
Hast thou plunged thy house in calamity, and will no worthier wish occur to thee, than to leave it to its sorrows and distress, with the aggravating pangs of causing thy afflicting, however blamable self-desertion?
Her face hurt, and her ears rang from a hallucinatory dream of ancient voices afflicting her.
Her face hurt, and her ears rang from a hallucinatory dream of ancient voices afflicting her.
He was not likely to incur personal discomfort to mitigate evils that were only afflicting someone else.