THROE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does throe mean? 

• THROE (noun)
  The noun THROE has 2 senses:

1. severe spasm of pain

2. hard or painful trouble or struggle

  Familiarity information: THROE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• THROE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Severe spasm of pain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

the throes of childbirth

Hypernyms ("throe" is a kind of...):

agony; excruciation; suffering (a state of acute pain)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Hard or painful trouble or struggle

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

a country in the throes of economic collapse

Hypernyms ("throe" is a kind of...):

distress (a state of adversity (danger or affliction or need))

 Context examples 

Indisposed to hesitate, and full of impatient impulses—soul and senses quivering with keen throes—I put it back and looked in.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In the same instant he knew he ought not to accept, and found himself struggling in the throes of indecision.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

For example, all the silver, nickel, and copper in the earth and even in our bodies came from the explosive death throes of stars

(Kepler Catches Early Flash of an Exploding Star, NASA)

The star is a bloated red giant, residing 1,200 light-years away, which has probably shed at least half of its mass into space during its death throes.

(Hubble Detects Giant 'Cannonballs' Shooting from Star, NASA)

They bristled up to him, stiff-legged and challenging, while he, wasting no time on elaborate preliminaries, snapping into action like a steel spring, was at their throats and destroying them before they knew what was happening and while they were yet in the throes of surprise.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

But time began at last to obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The day had been too long, the day's effort too intense, and he was deep in the throes of the reaction.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

A pang of exquisite suffering—a throe of true despair—rent and heaved my heart.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of his ape-like spite.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

And he felt the stir in him, like a throe of yearning pain, of the desire to paint these visions that flashed unsummoned on the mirror of his mind.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)