agonizingly

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of agonizingly Spelling out words like this enabled him to communicate, albeit at the agonizingly slow pace of five words per minute. — Literary Hub, 6 Nov. 2026 The three-peat is slowly, agonizingly having the life squeezed out of it by a collection of hardscrabble Midwesterners with no regard for stardom or status. — Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2026 Samjad keeps the twins’ superpowers under wraps for an agonizingly long time, until the sun goes down and their bodies are able to regenerate. — Damon Wise, Deadline, 12 Oct. 2026 But alas, eventually all involved have to get down to business and actually contend with the plot beats of Hoover’s story, which is when the movie careens off a cliff, plummeting past so-bad-it’s-good and crashing on the rocks of agonizingly dumb. — Richard Lawson, HollywoodReporter, 30 Sep. 2026 Ireland agonizingly captures the everyday indignities and legal roadblocks that survivors may encounter. — Patrick Ryan, USA Today, 16 Sep. 2026 In the same way that the ball bounced off Darren Morris’ fingers and disappeared into the crowded Oregon bench, another chance to defeat a Power Four opponent slipped agonizingly through Boise State’s grasp on Saturday afternoon. — Idaho Statesman, 6 Sep. 2026 Likewise, the film rewards patience with an agonizingly tender culminating shot — a reminder that some things must change while others linger in the amber of childhood. — Beatrice Loayza, Variety, 24 Aug. 2026 While court documents show there have been settlement discussions in some of the cases, some plaintiffs’ attorneys say the pace has been agonizingly slow—or nonexistent. — Luke Cyphers, Sportico.com, 13 Aug. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for agonizingly
Adverb
  • Landowners and business owners in the Big Bend region, environmentalists and others who’ve opposed the construction project were bitterly disappointed with the court’s decision.
    — Rebecca Santana, Chicago Tribune, 9 Nov. 2026
  • By the time September winds down, Hester is on a timetable all her own, out of synch with her family, detached from its cares, paradoxically and bitterly free.
    — Richard Brody, New Yorker, 6 Nov. 2026
Adverb
  • Without these vital exchanges informing his state of mind, his volatility seems arbitrary (though sadly, neither version manages to make his comedic quips really land).
    — Siddhant Adlakha, IndieWire, 5 Nov. 2026
  • Comms executive Shari Rosenblum is departing 20th Television and 20th Television Animation after nearly three decades, Variety has sadly learned.
    — Joe Otterson, Variety, 5 Nov. 2026
Adverb
  • Tarun would tease her, and my mother would look sorrowfully toward Kavitha, as if the two of them now shared some womanly burden.
    — Madhuri Vijay, New Yorker, 16 Nov. 2025
Adverb
  • Gray has always displayed a probing visual style, boldly confrontational yet painfully tender.
    — Richard Brody, New Yorker, 6 Nov. 2026
  • Reich played Boss Gibbons, the painfully Gen-Z co-worker of Megan Stalter’s expat Jessica, in his first-ever screen acting role.
    — Ellise Shafer, Variety, 6 Nov. 2026
Adverb
  • Allowing political control over grantmaking to become more deeply entrenched would make recovery considerably harder.
    — Carole LaBonne, Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2026
  • Just by chance, a guy who does what he is coached to do, continues to work really, really hard and do the right things, the ball somehow finds him.
    — Dom Amore, Hartford Courant, 8 Nov. 2026

Browse Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Agonizingly.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/agonizingly. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!