throe
/θɹoʊ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.24 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A severe pang or spasm of pain, especially one experienced when the uterus contracts during childbirth, or when a person is about to die.
noun
A severe pang or spasm of pain, especially one experienced when the uterus contracts during childbirth, or when a person is about to die.
noun
A hard struggle, especially one associated with the beginning or finishing of a task.
verb
To cause (someone) to feel throes, as if in childbirth; to put in agony.
Obsolete; Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "O man haue mind of that laſt bitter throw; / For as the tree does fall, ſo lyes it euer low."
- "[Valerius] Cordus ſaith, that Iuncus bombicinus ſodden in wine, and ſo taken, helpeth the throwes and gripings of the bellie, that women haue in their childing."
- "[M]ine own entrails did sustain / Moan for my daughter's yet unended throes, […]"
- "Penſive here I ſat / Alone, but long I ſat not, till my womb / Pregnant by thee, and now exceſſive grown / Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes."
- "Thus round her new fal'n Young, the Heifer moves, / Fruit of her Throes, and Firſt-born of her Loves, / And anxious, (helpleſs as he lies, and bare) / Turns, and returns her, with a Mother's Care."
- "In this Shape, or in that, has Fate entail'd / The Mother's Throws on all of Woman born, / Not more the Children, than ſure Heirs of Pain."
Etymology
The noun is probably derived partly: * from Middle English throu, throwe (“(chiefly in the plural) uterine contraction during the birth of a child; pain experienced while giving birth; suffering; a pain; emotional distress, anxiety”) [and other forms], perhaps from: ** Old English þrawu (rare), a variant of þrēa (“affliction, torment; disaster; oppression; a rebuke; severity; threat”), from Proto-West Germanic *þrau, from Proto-Germanic *þrawō (“longing; suffering”), from Proto-Indo-European *trewh₁-; and ** Old English þrōwian (“to endure, suffer”), from Proto-Germanic *þrōwijaną, probably from *þrawō (see above); and ** Old Norse þrá (“longing, yearning”), from Proto-Germanic *þrawō (see above); and * from Middle English throuen (“to endure distress, suffer; to be ill, to have a fever; to suffer (death, hardship, illness, punishment, etc.); to endure (sadness, hard work, etc.)”) [and other forms], from Old English þrōwian (see above). The current spelling of the word is a 16th-century variant of Middle English throu, throwe, perhaps to avoid confusion with throw (“act of turning or twisting; fit of bad temper or peevishness; look of anger, bad temper, irritation, etc., a grimace”). The verb is derived: * from the noun; and * perhaps from Middle English throuen (verb) (see above).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *trewh₁-, throu, þrawu, *þrau, *þrawō, þrōwian
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /θɹoʊ/
- British English: /θɹəʊ/