martyrdom

plural martyrdoms

1. countableuncountableThe condition of a martyr; the death or suffering of a martyr; the death or suffering on account of adherence to the Christian faith, or to any cause.

   The Communists wanted to go on and on, suffering a comfortable martyrdom, meeting with endless defeats and afterwards putting the blame on other people.

   1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. III

   3 more examples

   The like clamour, and outcry, the Rabble of the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles made againſt Polycarp Biſhop of Smyrna, at the time of his Martyrdom. crying out againſt him to the Governour, that he ſhould caſt him to the Lyons, and when he anſwered them he could not, becauſe the Spectacular ſports were concluded, then they cry’d out, Burn him, burn him, juſt as the Jews cryed out againſt Chriſt to Pilate, Crucify him, crucify him.

   1681, George Hickes, A Sermon Preached before the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of London

   “Regard not that, my brother,” answered Magdalen Græme; “the first successors of Saint Peter himself, were elected not in sunshine but in tempests—not in the halls of the Vatican, but in the subterranean vaults and dungeons of Heathen Rome—they were not gratulated with shouts and salvos of cannon-shot and of musquetry, and the display of artificial fire—no, my brother—but by the hoarse summons of Lictors and Prætors, who came to drag the Fathers of the Church to martyrdom.[…]”

   1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XIII, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 276

   The ceiling had been painted with the martyrdom of some saint. Who shall place a bound to human folly, when both the inflicter and the endurer of torture have deemed that pain is acceptable in the sight of God?

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Age and Youth”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 11

2. countableuncountableExtreme suffering, affliction; torment; torture, especially without reason.