affliction
/əˈflɪkʃ(ə)n
/noun
1A cause of pain or harm: a crippling affliction of the nervous system...
- He listens to everyone and removes the pains and afflictions of all.
- It will also cover a number of other afflictions, besides gynaecological problems.
- Heartburn sounds such an innocuous affliction until you actually experience it but stabbing sharp pains in your chest when ever you bend down or lie down is not very fun.
Synonyms
disorder, disease, malady, complaint, ailment, illness, indisposition, scourge, plague, trouble, menace, evil, visitation
1.1 [mass noun] The state of being in pain: poor people in great affliction...
- Many of our sisters and brothers around the world live in sorrow and affliction: in the pain of hunger or the grip of disease, in fear of political reprisals, in poverty so pervasive it saps the spirit.
- The effects of man's exposition to these laws may vary between pleasure and pain, comfort and affliction, happiness and misery.
- This is the way mankind will end up, imagines Margaret Atwood: with huge affliction and dismay.
Synonyms
suffering, distress, pain, trouble, misery, wretchedness, hardship, misfortune, adversity, sorrow, torment, tribulation, woe, cross to bear, thorn in one's flesh/side;
bane, trial, calamity, ordeal;
(afflictions) ills
1.2 Astrology An instance of one celestial body afflicting another.Sexual ‘abnormalities’ - including promiscuity - are associated in general with afflictions between Venus, Mars and Saturn....
- Usually Saturn with Oculus Taurii produces great afflictions, and shows a strange mind.
- If the horary concerns a 7th house matter, however, the affliction may be describing the situation under consideration, in which case the warning is to proceed with diligence.
Origin
Middle English (originally in the sense 'infliction of pain or humiliation', specifically 'religious self-mortification'): via Old French from Latin afflictio(n-), from the verb affligere (see afflict).