Racked

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To endure intense emotional or physical torment that causes suffering significantly
2. Suffered great anguish or discomfort, often physical or mental in nature
3. Was subjected to intense suffering or hardship causing notable pain

Etymology: The verb "rack" meaning to torment or cause intense suffering comes from the same root as the image of stretching. Old English "reċċan" meant "to stretch out, extend," and the instrument of torture known as the rack, a frame used to pull prisoners' bodies apart, carries that literal sense into a brutal physical setting. Torment came to be the figurative extension: a person could be racked by pain, grief or doubt as if pulled in opposite directions. The verb's ancestry also reaches into Dutch and Norse. Middle English "rakke" and "rekke" were borrowed from Middle Dutch "rac" and "recke," related to Dutch "rek," and a separate Old Norse "reka," meaning "to be drifted" or "tossed," fed into the noun "rek," meaning drift or things tossed ashore. Those two strands of meaning, stretching and being driven about, helped shape the word's sense of strain.

Synonyms: tortured, afflicted, agonized, distressed, tormented

Antonyms: comforted, soothed, calmed, relieved, healed