St. Antony’s Cave

You can say something is excruciatingly funny or that a comedy is excruciating. “But the root sense, all pain, is: ‘to crucify.” The Lain ex functions as an intensive. Cruciare ‘to crucify’ has the generalized sense to torture. That’s from John Ciardi’s 1980 A Browser’s Dictionary (123). The 2024 Merriam-Webster largely agrees with this saying under etymology: “derived from Latin excruciatus, past participle of excruciare “to torture,” from ex- “out of, from” and cruciare “to torment, crucify,” from cruc-, crux “cross” — related to cross, crucial, crucify “Excruciating” (Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/excruciating. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024). But Merriam-Webster give us the direct connection of “out of the cross” which makes any Confessional Lutheran pick up his ears, and now we’re to the excruciating 21^st century. Continue reading →