excruciating
adj.adj. extremely painful or very embarrassing. You use this to describe a feeling that is almost too much to handle.
adj. causing intense physical or mental suffering; intensely painful or distressing. Often used to describe extreme boredom or social embarrassment.
The pain in my broken leg was excruciating.
We had to sit through an excruciating three-hour presentation that could have been a short email.
The athlete described the final mile of the marathon as excruciating, as every muscle in her body screamed for her to stop.
Present participle of excruciate, from Latin excruciō, from ex- + cruciō (“I torment”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Often used to modify nouns like 'pain', 'detail', 'boredom', or 'embarrassment'.
It was an excruciatingly painIt was an excruciating painLearners sometimes confuse the adjective 'excruciating' with the adverb 'excruciatingly' when modifying a noun.
Last updated May 9, 2026