The AI-powered English dictionary
present participle and gerund of harrow examples
comparative more harrowing, superlative most harrowing
Causing pain or distress. quotations examples
Harrowing journeys down the dark roads of anger, violence, and madness
2006, Paul Chadwick, Concrete: Killer Smile, Dark Horse Books, cover text
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.
2013 January, Brian Hayes, “Father of Fractals”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, page 62
plural harrowings
The process of breaking up earth with a harrow. examples
Suffering, torment. examples
Ravaging; hostile incursion; spoliation; intentional widespread destruction. quotations
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[.]
1956 April, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Chicago, page 122, column 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. quotations examples
As in other myths, like Christ's harrowing of hell, the initiate descends into the netherworld for the magical three days.
1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 178
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.
1986, Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages, page 108
The motif of the harrowing of hell was highly influential in the Insular world.
2002, Michael W. Herren, Shirley Ann Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century, page 157
But Juliana's uniquely powerful chaining of the devil is surely meant to recall Christ's harrowing of hell.
2013, Robert E. Bjork, The Cynewulf Reader, page 153