harrowing

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of harrow.

comparative more harrowing · superlative most harrowing

1. formalCausing pain or distress; harrying.

   Harrowing journeys down the dark roads of anger, violence, and madness

   2006, Paul Chadwick, Concrete: Killer Smile, Dark Horse Books, cover text

   2 more examples

   Toward the end of the war, Benoit was sent off on his own with forged papers; he wound up working as a horse groom at a chalet in the Loire valley. Mandelbrot describes this harrowing youth with great sangfroid.

   2013 January 28, Brian Hayes, “Father of Fractals”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2013, page 62

   But to the northeast, people displaced by fighting from the town of Borova – just seven miles from the front – recount harrowing tales of destruction.

   2025 February 21, Scott Peterson, “Once-occupied Ukraine towns try to stay defiant amid fear over Russia gains”, in The Christian Science Monitor, archived from the original on 28 Feb 2025

plural harrowings

1. The process of breaking up earth with a harrow.

   The field received two harrowings.

2. Suffering, torment.
3. Ravaging; hostile incursion; spoliation; intentional widespread destruction.

   Scientists who complain about the helplessness of politicians might consider the desolation in England which followed the harrowing of the north by William the Conqueror or the state of the Palatinate long after the end of the Thirty Years War[.]

   1956 April 28, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Chicago, page 122, column 1

   1. ChristianityChrist's ravaging or hostile incursion of Hell, conducted between his crucifixion and resurrection, in which he liberated the souls of the righteous held captive by Satan.

      The motif of the harrowing of hell was highly influential in the Insular world.

      2002, Michael W. Herren, Shirley Ann Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century, →ISBN, page 157

      3 more examples

      As in other myths, like Christ's harrowing of hell, the initiate descends into the netherworld for the magical three days.

      1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 178

      In the harrowing, Christ sweeps down upon death, hell, and the Devil, smashes down the doors of hell, and triumphantly carries the just off to heaven.

      1986, Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages, →ISBN, page 108

      But Juliana's uniquely powerful chaining of the devil is surely meant to recall Christ's harrowing of hell.

      2013, Robert E. Bjork, The Cynewulf Reader, →ISBN, page 153