ORDEAL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Ordeal

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/ɔrdˈil/ Listen

Ordeal

noun

A severe or trying experience.

A primitive method of determining a person's guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under divine control; escape was usually taken as a sign of innocence. Synonym: trial by ordeal.

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"Ordeal" Quotes from Famous Books

... admirable how he emerged victor in the end; men of riper powers and experience might have come through the ordeal with less success. He had himself tolerably well in hand, all things considered, and his plan of action proves it. Sleep being absolutely out of the question and traveling an unknown trail in the darkness equally impracticable, he sat up the whole of that night, ...

— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood

... instead of the blood of mortality. Now we can know the two sides of things. We understand the good, because we have been in contact with the evil. Our joy is perfect, because we have experienced pain and sorrow. We know what life is, eternal life, because we have passed through the ordeal ...

— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson

... hanging her head as if the ordeal was too much for her, was the plainest-looking maiden he had ever seen in his life. She was thin and ill-thriven-looking, very different from the buxom lassies he was accustomed to see: her eyes were colourless; her nose ...

— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... that was necessary in the east, he had then taken the final and most hazardous step of going to Farnham's home. It was hardly remarkable, therefore, that he had seized the opportunity of escaping so trying an ordeal at once. It seemed to me impossible that he should intend returning to Denver, where, in the light of day, and among old business and domestic associates, he could not long hope to escape detection, perfect as the likeness seemed to be. What, then, would ...

— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... trunk and head of the little boy fall with a profusion of blood upon the ground at the foot of the rope. By means of an incantation these resume their natural positions, and the little boy gets up and walks off, apparently none the worse for his most trying ordeal. ...

— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson

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