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PAROXYSM
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A sudden uncontrollable attack
Example:
convulsions of laughter
Synonyms:
convulsion; fit; paroxysm
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("paroxysm" is a kind of...):
attack (a sudden occurrence of an uncontrollable condition)
Derivation:
paroxysmal (accompanied by or of the nature of paroxysms)
Context examples:
Sometimes, indeed, I felt a wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved cousin or longed, with a devouring maladie du pays, to see once more the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and despair.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
From this document, I learned that Mr. Micawber being again arrested, “Was in a final paroxysm of despair; and that he begged me to send him his knife and pint pot, by bearer, as they might prove serviceable during the brief remainder of his existence, in jail. He also requested, as a last act of friendship, that I would see his family to the Parish Workhouse, and forget that such a Being ever lived.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient's malady.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I never saw a lunatic in such a paroxysm of rage before; and I hope I shall not again.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity; but the paroxysm of grief that had seized the stranger overcame his weakened powers, and many hours of repose and tranquil conversation were necessary to restore his composure.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
“So, my dear Watson, there’s my report of a failure. And yet—and yet—” he clenched his thin hands in a paroxysm of conviction—“I know it’s all wrong. I feel it in my bones. There is something that has not come out, and that housekeeper knows it.”
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I had half started forward, to get over with what I was certain would be a stormy five minutes, when a more violent suffocating paroxysm seized the unfortunate person who was lying on his back.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
What of her anger and pent feelings, her lungs were irritated into the dry, hacking cough, and with blood-suffused face and one hand clenched against her chest, she waited for the paroxysm to pass.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
As he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
“Though harrowing to myself to mention, the alienation of Mr. Micawber (formerly so domesticated) from his wife and family, is the cause of my addressing my unhappy appeal to Mr. Traddles, and soliciting his best indulgence. Mr. T. can form no adequate idea of the change in Mr. Micawber's conduct, of his wildness, of his violence. It has gradually augmented, until it assumes the appearance of aberration of intellect. Scarcely a day passes, I assure Mr. Traddles, on which some paroxysm does not take place. Mr. T. will not require me to depict my feelings, when I inform him that I have become accustomed to hear Mr. Micawber assert that he has sold himself to the D. Mystery and secrecy have long been his principal characteristic, have long replaced unlimited confidence. The slightest provocation, even being asked if there is anything he would prefer for dinner, causes him to express a wish for a separation. Last night, on being childishly solicited for twopence, to buy “lemon-stunners”—a local sweetmeat—he presented an oyster-knife at the twins!
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
