Crossword clues for throe
throe
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Throe \Throe\, n. [OE. [thorn]rowe, [thorn]rawe, AS. [thorn]re['a] a threatening, oppression, suffering, perhaps influenced by Icel. [thorn]r[=a] a throe, a pang, a longing; cf. AS. [thorn]reowian to suffer.]
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Extreme pain; violent pang; anguish; agony; especially, one of the pangs of travail in childbirth, or purturition.
Prodogious motion felt, and rueful throes.
--Milton. A tool for splitting wood into shingles; a frow.
Throe \Throe\, v. i. To struggle in extreme pain; to be in agony; to agonize.
Throe \Throe\, v. t.
To put in agony. [R.]
--Shak.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1200, throwe "pain, pang of childbirth, agony of death," of uncertain origin, possibly from Old English þrawan "twist, turn, writhe" (see throw (v.)), or altered from Old English þrea (genitive þrawe) "affliction, pang, evil; threat, persecution" (related to þrowian "to suffer"), from Proto-Germanic *thrawo (cognates: Middle High German dro "threat," German drohen "to threaten"). Modern spelling first recorded 1610s. Related: Throes.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A pang, spasm. 2 A hard struggle. 3 A tool for splitting wood into shingles; a frow. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To put in agony. 2 (context intransitive English) To struggle in extreme pain; to be in agony; to agonize.
WordNet
n. severe spasm of pain; "the throes of dying"; "the throes of childbirth"
hard or painful trouble or struggle; "a country in the throes of economic collapse"
Usage examples of "throe".
It needed a conscious physical effort to call up his reserves, and during those seconds, the torpedoes fired by Bloodhound in her death throes were knifing in to revenge her.
Death throes that, within a few centuries, will mean the extinction of biological life within a light-year or so of that star for the majestic Matrioshka brains, though they are the pinnacles of sentient civilization, are intrinsically hostile environments for fleshy life.
What, then, would be more likely than an attempt by Purling, in his death throes, to reveal the name that would eventually be wanted?
Indeed, all through the throes of those shaming days, I heard but one refrain.
There, under the sun and under the speckless sheen of the sky, the wooing of the Titan began, the vast primal passion, the two world-forces, the elemental Male and Female, locked in a colossal embrace, at grapples in the throes of an infinite desire, at once terrible and divine, knowing no law, untamed, savage, natural, sublime.
This painting showed a whale hunta great sperm whale, draped with harpoon lines, thrashing about in its death throes, a huge jet of bright arterial blood rising from its spouter, while its flukes dashed a boatful of harpooners into the sea.
They were both still wearing their life jackets and antiflash gear, hoods and gloves, and they stood there in the stifling smoke as the great ship, now in her death throes, suddenly lurched violently, thirty degrees to starboard.
Montfort was in the throes of fierce battle, rebels pitted against the established ruling class and their cyclopian guards.
As the six watched its death throes, something came up from beneath it, with jaws as big as a dragline excavator, and sucked the gull down.
Her head was thrown back with her eyes closed, Eros imagined much like she would be in the throes of passion.
First Peshawar Scouts, based at Fort Hamilton as Gor Khatri was called before it was refurbished, was in the throes of a more than usually bloody struggle with the local Afridi.
He moved to put the bar aside, but again Pony, still in the throes of the levitational magic, intervened.
Immediately, she noticed that the scarring on his face was gone too, as was the damage to his eyelid, which had given him the permanent sleepy-eyed look of a myasthenic in the throes of crisis.
While the others of his kind watched Sheol shuddering and writhing in the beginnings of its death throes, Set pondered carefully and drew his plans.
Peter snd Sally were deep in argument over her wedding plans, Lou and Keith were in the throes of becoming acquainted, and Beverly was getting drunker by the minute.