Excruciating means causing unbearable pain or embarrassment. Excruciating pain, excruciatingly slow, an excruciating silence.
It is used as much of social agony as of physical, and excruciatingly is a favourite intensifier — excruciatingly polite, excruciatingly slow. The Latin inside it means from the cross, which is where the strength of the word comes from.
1adjectiveexcruciatingCausing unbearable pain or embarrassment.
“The pain from his broken leg was excruciating.”
excruciating is a quality.
Latin excruciare means to torment — ex plus cruciare, to crucify, from crux, a cross.
Latin
excruciō
English, today
excruciating
Built from
Present participle of excruciate, from Latin excruciō, from ex- + cruciō (“to torment”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA