agonising

adj

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"agonising" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“agonising” is uncommon English (frequency #61,947 among 3,931 “A” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#61,947
frequency rank, English
3,931
“A” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Causing agony; very painful

Corpus desk

Index EN-agonising · agonising · English

agonising · rank #61,947 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #61,947
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-4 4 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,931
  • PHOTO-FINISH agnosticism

Nearest frequency peer: agnosticism (-1 rank slots)

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Long-tail ranks near “agonising”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “agonising” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for agonising
PropertyValue
Headwordagonising
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechAdjective
Letters9
Frequency rank#61,947
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “agonising” in English

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right).agonisingfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Ticks step logarithmically, so each one marks a roughly tenfold drop in how often the word turns up. Rare peers in the same band: “agnosticism” (#61,946), “aeolian” (#61,944), “alacrity” (#61,950). Among 3,931 “A” headwords, “agonising” is #61,947. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

agonising is uncommon English at frequency #61,947 among 3,931 “A” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Causing agony; very painful".

agonising has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

This entry carries no recorded etymology, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is agonising, spelled A-G-O-N-I-S-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    Causing agony; very painful

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how agonising appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. agonising desperation
  2. agonising pain

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "agonising"?
"agonising" is spelled A-G-O-N-I-S-I-N-G.
What does "agonising" mean?
As an adjective, "agonising" means: Causing agony; very painful
What language does "agonising" come from?
"agonising" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "agonising", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

arbitrate#61,965artificer#61,968aspartate#61,972xylophone#61,918

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list