Home › Glossary › Letter A

Anguish

Psychology
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Intense mental or emotional suffering, often without clear resolution.

Detailed Definition
Anguish arises from deep despair, guilt, or existential dread, surpassing ordinary sadness. In poetry, it is expressed through fragmented syntax, visceral metaphors, or cries of lamentation, serving as a vehicle to articulate the ineffable pain of loss, injustice, or spiritual crisis.
Example
Example in poetry:
In John Donne’s “A Hymn to God the Father,” anguish emerges in the repeated plea “Wilt thou forgive that sin?”; In Anne Sexton’s “Wanting to Die,” anguish is palpable in the raw depiction of suicidal ideation; In W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” societal collapse evokes existential anguish: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”; In Lucille Clifton’s “won’t you celebrate with me,” anguish underlies the struggle for self-definition amid oppression; In Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night,” anguish fuels the son’s desperate plea against his father’s death; In Warsan Shire’s “Home,” anguish saturates the refugee’s cry: “no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”
Additional Notes
Anguish denotes profound existential or emotional suffering, often tied to freedom, mortality, or moral crisis (Kierkegaard, Sartre); in poetry, it appears through visceral imagery, rhetorical questions, or disrupted meter; unlike general sadness, anguish implies a metaphysical dimension—e.g., Yeats’ “The Second Coming” or Shire’s “Home”; useful for students to link anguish to themes of meaninglessness or ethical responsibility; poetic techniques include enjambment to convey breathlessness or repetition for obsessive thought.
Also Known As
Distress Torment Agony Despair dolor Aching heart torture Sorrow
Skip to main content