Causing extreme mental anguish or suffering.
The news of the accident was harrowing. He felt sick to his stomach, imagining the pain and fear. The thought of their suffering was too much to bear.
The lone miner, trapped for days after the collapse, found the silence of the dark earth to be truly harrowing. Every creak and shift of the rock above made his heart pound, a constant dread gnawing at him as he imagined his fate.
He watched the last of his meticulously cataloged spore samples float away on the wind. Months of work, gone. The thought of starting over, alone in the humid, alien jungle, was a truly harrowing experience, a heavy weight in his gut.
My cat, Bartholomew, once ate a whole jar of pickles. The resulting pickle-breath was so *harrowing*, it made me weep. He then tried to lick my face, and I swear I saw my ancestors fleeing. It was the worst.
Bartholomew's attempt to knit a life-sized hamster costume for his pet tarantula resulted in a truly harrowing experience. The arachnid, mistaking yarn for a snack, embarked on a spree of web-spinning destruction. Bartholomew's screams echoed as his tiny apartment became a fluffy, eight-legged prison.
The news of the accident was harrowing, leaving everyone in the room with a knot in their stomach. Images flashed through their minds, a constant replay of what could have happened. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken fear and the raw ache of what might be.
The sound of the emergency beacon was a raw, scraping noise that echoed the hollow emptiness inside. Every minute that passed felt like an eternity, the silence amplifying the fear. This prolonged uncertainty, the gnawing dread of what might have happened to the probe on the methane ocean of Titan, was truly harrowing.
The last transmission from the deep-sea research submersible was a garbled cry for help, followed by silence. Days later, the retrieved data logs painted a harrowing picture of their final moments, detailing the crushing descent and the desperate, failed attempts to regain control.
My cat, Bartholomew, decided my new white rug was a prime target for a hairball convention. The sight of the emerging "gift" was truly harrowing, a visual I'll struggle to scrub from my memory, much like the stain itself.
Barry the hamster's escape attempt was truly harrowing. He navigated the treacherous vacuum cleaner cord jungle, dodged the terrifying looming foot of doom, and even outsmarted Bartholomew the cat, only to discover his daring quest for the forbidden cheese puffs had led him directly into the dreaded sock drawer.
The silence after the accident was deafening, a harrowing testament to the terrible suddenness of loss. Every tick of the clock amplified the emptiness, a constant reminder of what was gone. There was no escape from the crushing weight of grief.
The news of the collapse brought a harrowing silence to the control room. Each missed communication from the deep-sea research vessel was a fresh wave of dread, the implications of their isolation a suffocating weight.
The pilot watched the fuel gauge plummet, the silence in the cockpit now a palpable pressure. He made the radio call, his voice strained, knowing the outcome was inevitable for the passengers he carried on this flight. The entire situation was utterly harrowing.
Bartholomew, the perpetually damp basement dweller, discovered his prize-winning petunias had been pilfered. The sheer audacity! He paced, a wild look in his eye, recalling the meticulous watering schedule and the lullabies he'd sung to the budding blossoms. The agony of such betrayal was truly harrowing, far worse than finding lint in his soup.
Barnaby's attempt to fold a fitted sheet resulted in a truly harrowing experience, a torment of elasticized corners and fabric entanglements that threatened to unravel his very sanity. He considered simply setting it ablaze, a fiery, albeit dramatic, solution to his domestic quandary.
The solitary ordeal was truly harrowing. After weeks of deprivations and the gnawing uncertainty of their fate, the survivors' spirits were utterly depleted, a profound mental anguish that seemed to cleave them from hope.
The prolonged silence after the breach alarm was harrowing. Each tick of the chronometer amplified the gnawing dread, the phantom whispers of what might transpire in the vacuum beyond the hull, a profound and unbearable suffering.
The ordeal of retrieving the data from the corrupted, archaic system was harrowing. Each failed attempt, each glimmer of hope extinguished, amplified the gnawing despair as the final backup dissolved into oblivion, leaving only the specter of irreversible professional ruin.
The existential dread of realizing you've accidentally eaten an entire family-sized bag of cheese puffs, only to discover it was filled with desiccated earwax, was a truly harrowing experience. My gastrointestinal tract has never felt such profound betrayal, nor my psyche such unmitigated ignominy.
The existential dread of a sentient toaster, realizing its sole purpose was to indiscriminately incinerate bread for an ungrateful populace, proved a truly harrowing predicament, a culinary purgatory of perpetual charring and crumbs.
Normal — Everyday words worth reinforcing.