All 6 Uses of
ordeal
in
Not Without My Daughter
- As minutes ticked past, we gradually relaxed our grips upon one another, hoping that the ordeal had ended.†
*ordeal = very difficult or painful experience
- We huddled together in the downstairs foyer, our backs against the protection of the cement block walls until the ordeal had ended.†
- I remember the ordeal of labor and the intense pain that accompanies the onset of life.†
- The woman nearly died, and she lost all of her teeth during the ordeal.†
- The twenty-hour bus trip from Van had turned into a thirty-two hour ordeal, but it was over.†
- After our return to America, I met with Teresa Hobgood, the State Department caseworker who aided my family throughout the eighteen month ordeal.†
Definitions:
-
(1)
(ordeal) a very difficult or painful experience
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Much more rarely, ordeal can refer to a primitive method of determining a person's guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under divine control. Escape or survival was usually taken as a sign of innocence.