traumatic
/trɔːˈmatɪk
/ /traʊˈmatɪk/adjective
1Deeply disturbing or distressing: she was going through a traumatic divorce...
- It was a traumatic episode with a distressing cliffhanger.
- It was a deeply traumatic experience anticipating a police dog going berserk in the enclosed space that is Streatham Hill ticket office.
- His lack of health was incredibly disturbing and traumatic for all of us, especially a young boy who idolised him.
Synonyms
disturbing, shocking, distressing, disquieting, upsetting, damaging, scarring, injurious, harmful, hurtful, painful, agonizing, awful, chilling, alarming, devastating, harrowing, excruciating, horrifying, terrifying
informal mind-blowing
stressful, demanding, trying, taxing, terrible, bad, unpleasant, disagreeable, irksome, troublesome, vexatious
1.1Relating to or causing psychological trauma: she is remembering some deeply traumatic incident in her past...
- Psychological reactions to traumatic events also affect sexual functioning.
- Since the traumatic incident was, by definition, unpleasant, its repetition appeared to contravene the pleasure principle.
- In addition, amnesia for traumatic events may occur in rare cases.
2 Medicine Relating to or denoting physical injury.Researchers know that one common thread in a body's reaction to a traumatic injury is inflammation....
- All pregnant women with traumatic injury should be assessed formally in a medical setting.
- This is the cause of chronic swelling that sometimes occurs after surgery or a traumatic injury to a limb.
Derivatives
traumatically
- And I can't overlook how high-end consumption promises to do exactly what critics of the stuff have always yearned for, namely, to bring us together, often traumatically.
- Since he had only recently, and traumatically, been released on to the dating market, I couldn't give this delusion the duffing up it deserved; but honestly, cooking alone does not earn brownie points from a woman.
- He, too, traumatically abandons the young man.
Origin
Mid 19th century: via late Latin from Greek traumatikos, from trauma (see trauma).