English

Verb

harrowing

1. present participle of harrow

Adjective

harrowing ‎(comparative more harrowing, superlative most harrowing)

1. Causing pain or distress.
   • 2006, Paul Chadwick, Concrete: Killer Smile, Dark Horse Books, cover text

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

   • 2013 January 1, Brian Hayes, “Father of Fractals”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, page 62:

     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.

Translations

Noun

harrowing ‎(plural harrowings)

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

   The field received two harrowings.

2. Suffering, torment, especially that of Christ in his descent to ****.
   • 2002, Michael W. Herren & ‎Shirley Ann Brown, Christ in Celtic Christianity: Britain and Ireland from the Fifth to the Tenth Century, ISBN 0851158897, page 157:

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

   • 2013, Robert E. Bjork, The Cynewulf Reader, ISBN 1134980213, page 153:

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

   • 1986, Jeffrey Burton Russell, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages, ISBN 080149429X, page 108:

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

Translations