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Glite Dictionary
🚜 A farm tool 💔 To deeply upset 🌱 To break soil
to harrow

to harrow

1 7.7
To cause someone deep emotional pain and worry
  • verb
  • /ˈhɛroʊ/
translation icon : atormentar
  • I could a tale unfold His lightest word would Harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood.
  • harrow up thy soul

I could a tale unfold His lightest word would Harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood.

Examples

  • "I could a tale unfold whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul,"

    The Glass House (2001)

  • Does there ever come a day in life, I wondered, when a person isn't harrowed by a count?

    Fiction book (2000)

  • My father's letter to the church back home harrowed all of us.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • I could unfold a tale whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • I ought to have considered that she'd be hungry from her perpetual diet and thus harrowed.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • But that I am forbid to tell the secrets of my prison-house... I could a tale unfold... whose lightest word would harrow up thy soul.

    Hamlet (1990)

  • The news of her father's illness harrowed her deeply, leaving her unable to concentrate.

  • Watching the documentary about refugees harrowed him, making him rethink his views on the issue.

  • She was harrowed by memories of the accident, which haunted her every night.

Synonyms

to torment
vsto harrow
  • NSFW
107 7.2

To cause someone to feel great physical or mental pain

focuses on deep emotional suffering rather than physical pain
to bedevil
vsto harrow
1 8.2

Treat someone cruelly by hurting or frightening them again and again

causes intense deep distress rather than long continued cruelty

Antonyms

to soothe
63 3.4

To make someone feel calmer or reduce their pain

Compounds

disk harrow
  • Specialized
7.2

A farm tool with round metal disks that breaks up and smooths soil

flexible harrow
  • Specialized
8.1

A farming tool with small metal teeth that follows the ground to remove weeds

flex harrow
  • Specialized
8.6

A farm tool with spring teeth on a flexible frame that removes weeds from fields

rest-harrow
  • UK
9.9

A plant with tough roots and pink or purple flowers

rotary harrow
  • Specialized
8.5

A machine with rotating spikes that breaks and smooths soil before planting

tine harrow
  • Specialized
9.4

A farming tool with metal spikes that loosens soil and removes small weeds

How Distressing

to devastate
221 4.9
to traumatize
87 6.9
to harrow
1 7.7
to distress
32 4.1
to upset
362 1.0
to unsettle
7 4.9

Surface Forms

harrow infinitive
harrowed past
harrowed past participle
harrowing present participle
harrows third person singular

Etymology

Harrow used to mean 'to cause great distress' comes from the same old idea behind the tool and the word harry 'to trouble'. A helpful way to remember it is to imagine being emotionally 'torn up', as if your feelings were being pulled apart.