Agonal

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or pertaining to struggle, competition or conflict; of or pertaining to an agon.

    "Even the agonal games which began with the ancient Greeks were playful in their singular devotion to deities. Games were agonal demonstrations of transcendence."

  2. 2
    Of or pertaining to the pain of death.

    "The similarity of these persistent invaginations to the agonal is quite marked; like the agonal, they are multiple, rather short, they are in the ileum, and they are ascending, which is not at all an uncommon feature of the invaginations of death. Agonal invaginations in the adult are, however, uncommon and seldom found; but, in spite of this fact, the suggestion is near at hand that perhaps the multiple, healed invaginations here described are, as it were, persistent agonal formations, the death-struggle implied terminating in favor of the patient."

Adjective
  1. 1
    pertaining to or associated with agony (especially death agonies) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

Example

More examples

"Even the agonal games which began with the ancient Greeks were playful in their singular devotion to deities. Games were agonal demonstrations of transcendence."

Etymology

From agon + -al; cognate with agony.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.