afflict

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afflict (one) with (someone or something)

1. To cause one to contract an ailment or disease. A person's name or pronoun can appear before "with." My classroom has been almost empty all week because one kid afflicted the others with chicken pox. When you have a child in preschool, you'll be afflicted with every illness. It seems I've afflicted my husband with my cold.

2. To cause another person hardship or difficulty. When used in this sense, a noun or pronoun typically does not appear between "afflict" and "with." Once I finally recovered from my illness, I was afflicted with medical bills. You graduate from college, young and optimistic, and then you're promptly afflicted with student loan debt! Thanks so much for afflicting me with another massive filing project.

3. To force someone to spend time with an irritating person. A person's name or pronoun typically appears before "with." Please don't afflict me with your obnoxious brother this evening. How are we are going have any fun tonight if Mom afflicts us with Uncle Al? Keep moving, or else they'll afflict us with anyone they don't want to have to sit with.

comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable

To provide aid or support to those in need, while prompting those in positions of power or luxury to act in more ethical ways. Adapted from the writing of humorist Finley Peter Dunne as the fictional character "Mr. Dooley." It is our professional duty as journalists to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable—by exposing the faults of the rich and powerful while acting as the voice of the impoverished and disenfranchised. I've always believed that the church should always strive to be comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. After all, "A man’s riches may ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threat." When I ran for office, I vowed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, and, today, I put forth a bill to substantially increase taxes on the wealthy and lower those on the poor.

See also: afflict, and, comfort, comfortable

afflict someone with someone

to burden someone with an annoying person. I was foolish enough to afflict myself with my young cousin for the weekend.

afflict someone with something

1. Lit. to cause someone to suffer from a disease or disability. The virus has afflicted everyone in the valley.

2. Fig. to burden someone with trouble. We were afflicted with all the worry that comes with raising a teenager.

See also: afflict

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References in periodicals archive ?

Being beheaded was an "afflictive punishment" that could not be rectified.

Robespierre's tail: the possibilities of justice after the terror

As a student pointed out to me upon reading the book, Erzen, who was trained in American studies rather than religious studies, seems at times to believe that extreme religiosity of this sort is itself an addiction, or perhaps the spiritual methadone used to subdue whatever physical or emotional cravings one perceives as afflictive. Yet Erzen's acknowledged critical distance from evangelicalism never leads to the sort of panicky dissociative techniques increasingly evident in studies of conservative religion, whose authors wink calculatingly at scholarly readers: really I'm one of you, not one of them.

Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement

afflictive punishments (for instance, physical mutilation) about which

Sentencing and incarceration in the ad hoc tribunals

Beings are prone to afflictive emotions like hatred etc.

A Truthful Heart-Buddhist Practices for Connecting with Others

Such an approach would hold that virtue-acquisition involves more than undoing and positive thinking (decisionist methods), and prioritize that virtues are primarily acquired through 1) interactive experiences with and internalization of other persons, and 2) intentional working-through of vices (afflictive emotions) that diminish one's capacity to express virtue.

Emotion and transformation in the relational spirituality paradigm Part 1. prospects and prescriptions for reconstructive dialogue

Pain (and discomfort and anger and any afflictive feeling) reminds us that we aren't in harmony with what is happening.

Five Days with Adyashanti

In the chapter 'Getting under Way' the editor thinks that Teufelsdrockh suffers from an 'afflictive derangement of head', since he reflects that:

Carlyle through Nietzsche: reading Sartor Resartus

Cyclic Existence</p> <pre> Once we finally recognize the suffering state we are in, the all-pervasive suffering that the afflictive emotions such as attachment and anger inflict upon us, we develop a sense of frustration and disgust with our present predicament.

Sayt k'ilim goot (of one heart): transforming suffering

His Holiness's practice of nonviolence in extremely difficult circumstances over many decades bears witness to the power of the Buddhist tradition of training the mind to overcome afflictive emotions and is a gift to the entire world.

The contribution of H.H. the XIVth Dalai Lama to interfaith education

Her work of healing illustrates the path of tantric Buddhism, in which the afflictive emotions are not execrated, denied or repressed, but rather are clearly seen, fully owned, and deeply understood; in this way, negativity is transmuted into the compost out of which wisdom and compassion may grow.

The spiritual journeys of American Buddhist women

In every single session after the initial peaceful one, I was under assault by afflictive emotions--anger, fear, panic, and doubt--which were far more powerful than the run-of-the-mill distractions and disturbing thoughts I had encountered in the first few months of my practice.

Blast of the divine: what a Department of Corrections shotgun pellet taught me about centering prayer