The term agony was introduced into the English language in the late fourteenth century by theologian John Wycliffe, in a translation of the Bible, spelled as agonye. It appears that Wycliffe directly borrowed the word from the Latin agonia, which had a similar meaning. This Latin word originated from an Ancient Greek term also pronounced as agonia, but signifying “struggle” or “competition” (due to the belief that agony represented a form of mental struggle). The base of agonia is agon, meaning “competition” (also the source of words like protagonist and antagonist), tracing back to the Proto-Indo-European root ag, meaning “to draw out” or “move”. The usage of the term agony in literature has gradually decreased since its peak in the late 1860s.
