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Glite Dictionary
to begin to throb

to begin to throb

1 4.1
Start to feel a painful, regular beating in part of the body
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : empezar a latir
  • After staring at the screen for too long, her temples began to throb painfully.
  • my head began to throb
  • my temples began to throb
  • my ankle began to throb

Examples

  • My head began to throb again.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • Howard's bad leg immediately began to throb in counterpoint to his pounding head.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • His head began to throb.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Her leg began to throb again.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • The burn on my chest began to throb.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • A scratch on my hip began to throb.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • The wound in his chest had begun to throb again.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • My temples begin to throb.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • Jacobson felt a blood vessel begin to throb at the side of his head.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • I closed my eyes, feeling the ebbing blood begin to throb in my temples again.

    Fiction book (1991)

Synonyms

to palpitate
vsto begin to throb
1 8.1

To make a body part, especially the heart, beat fast and hard because of strong feeling

starts as rhythmic pulsing pain in a body part like the head

How Painful

to ache
25 1.0
to begin to throb
1 4.1

Surface Forms

begin to throb infinitive
beginning to throb present participle
begins to throb third person singular
began to throb past
begun to throb past participle

Morphology

begin + to + throb

The meaning 'to start experiencing a rhythmic or pulsating pain' is directly predictable from combining 'begin' (to commence) with 'throb' (to beat or vibrate), with 'to' functioning simply as the infinitival marker. This is a straightforward, compositional verb + infinitive construction common across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the parts will readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Begin to throb makes you imagine a part of the body starting to beat like a small drum or like your pulse, with throb as the repeated strong beat and begin showing it has just started. So, begin to throb means 'to start feeling a steady, beating pain'.