Wiktionary

harrowing

English

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Etymology

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By surface analysis, harrow +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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harrowing

  1. present participle and gerund of harrow

Adjective

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harrowing (comparative more harrowing, superlative most harrowing)

  1. Causing pain or distress; harrying.
    • 2006, Paul Chadwick, Concrete: Killer Smile, Dark Horse Books, cover text:
      Harrowing journeys down the dark roads of anger, violence, and madness
    • 2013 January, Brian Hayes, “Father of Fractals”, in American Scientist‎[1], volume 101, number 1, page 62:
      Toward the end of the war, Benoit was sent off on his own with forged papers; he wound up working as a horse groom at a chalet in the Loire valley. Mandelbrot describes this harrowing youth with great sangfroid.

Translations

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Noun

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harrowing (plural harrowings)

  1. The process of breaking up earth with a harrow.
    Hypernym: tillage
    Coordinate term: ploughing
    The field received two harrowings.
  2. Suffering, torment.
  3. Ravaging; hostile incursion; spoliation; intentional widespread destruction.
    • 1956 April, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Chicago, page 122, column 1:
      Scientists who complain about the helplessness of politicians might consider the desolation in England which followed the harrowing of the north by William the Conqueror or the state of the Palatinate long after the end of the Thirty Years War[.]
    1. (Christianity) Christ's ravaging or hostile incursion of Hell, conducted between his crucifixion and resurrection, in which he liberated the souls of the righteous held captive by Satan.
      • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 178:
        As in other myths, like Christ's harrowing of hell, the initiate descends into the netherworld for the magical three days.
      • 1986, Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages, →ISBN, page 108:
        In the harrowing, Christ sweeps down upon death, hell, and the Devil, smashes down the doors of hell, and triumphantly carries the just off to heaven.
      • 2002, Michael W. Herren, Shirley Ann Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century, →ISBN, page 157:
        The motif of the harrowing of hell was highly influential in the Insular world.
      • 2013, Robert E. Bjork, The Cynewulf Reader, →ISBN, page 153:
        But Juliana's uniquely powerful chaining of the devil is surely meant to recall Christ's harrowing of hell.

Derived terms

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Translations

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