excruciating
/ɪkˈskruːʃieɪtɪŋ
/adjective
1Intensely painful: excruciating back pain...
- Feeling one of his ribs break, the excruciating pain became too unbearable for Fred to take.
- After enduring excruciating pain, a raging infection and almost a week in the hospital, I feel fortunate to be alive.
- Needless to say, that if looks could kill, Darien would most certainly have died a painful and excruciating death.
Synonyms
agonizing, extremely painful, severe, acute, intense, extreme, savage, violent, racking, searing, piercing, stabbing, raging, harrowing, tormenting, grievous;
dreadful, awful, terrible, unbearable, unendurable, more than one can bear, more than flesh and blood can bear
informal splitting, thumping, pounding, killing
literary exquisite
1.1Very embarrassing, awkward, or tedious: he explained the procedure in excruciating detail...
- I could start trying to entrap him now, through a long, excruciating, and possibly embarrassing process.
- I call it seven of the most excruciating and awkward minutes of my life.
- Farah is willing to bring out all the emotional guns to convince his readers of the horror of the situation, describing the scene in excruciating detail.