Library / English Dictionary

AFFLICT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause physical pain or suffering in

Example:

afflict with the plague

Synonyms:

afflict; smite

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "afflict" is one way to...):

damage (inflict damage upon)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "afflict"):

visit (assail)

blight; plague (cause to suffer a blight)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

affliction (a state of great suffering and distress due to adversity)

afflictive (causing misery or pain or distress)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cause great unhappiness for; distress

Example:

she was afflicted by the death of her parents

Classified under:

Verbs of feeling

Hypernyms (to "afflict" is one way to...):

discomfit; discompose; disconcert; untune; upset (cause to lose one's composure)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "afflict"):

aggrieve; grieve (cause to feel sorrow)

tribulate (oppress or trouble greatly)

strain; stress; try (test the limits of)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s somebody

Sentence example:

The bad news will afflict him

Derivation:

affliction (a cause of great suffering and distress)

affliction (a state of great suffering and distress due to adversity)

afflictive (causing misery or pain or distress)

Credits

 Context examples: 

“But your father,” said Catherine, “was he afflicted?”

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Fanny in those early days had preferred her to Susan; and when the news of her death had at last reached Mansfield, had for a short time been quite afflicted.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

If you cast your mind back to some of those narratives with which you have afflicted a long-suffering public, you will recognise how often the grotesque has deepened into the criminal.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I had it, together with this piece of the true rood, from the five-and-twentieth descendant of Joseph of Arimathea, who still lives in Jerusalem alive and well, though latterly much afflicted by boils.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Elinor, too, was deeply afflicted; but still she could struggle, she could exert herself.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Captain Wentworth believed it impossible for man to be more attached to woman than poor Benwick had been to Fanny Harville, or to be more deeply afflicted under the dreadful change.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

The disease afflicts some 240 million people across the globe.

(Scientists sequence genome of snail linked to schistosomiasis, Agência Brasil)

In other people's presence I was, as formerly, deferential and quiet; any other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I have spoken of our English-speaking half-breed, Gomez—a fine worker and a willing fellow, but afflicted, I fancy, with the vice of curiosity, which is common enough among such men.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Originally developed to measure lymphedema in cancer patients following surgical removal of the lymph nodes, the new device has been adapted for those afflicted by elephantiasis caused by lymphatic filariasis infection.

(New portable device to gauge severity of elephantiasis, SciDev.Net)