English edit

Etymology edit

From agon +‎ -al; cognate with agony.

Adjective edit

agonal (comparative more agonal, superlative most agonal)

  1. Of or pertaining to struggle, competition or conflict; of or pertaining to an agon.
    • 1994, Edward Kuhlman, Agony in Education: The Importance of Struggle in the Process of Learning, Bergin & Garvey, page 70:
      Even the agonal games which began with the ancient Greeks were playful in their singular devotion to deities. Games were agonal demonstrations of transcendence.
    • 2004, Hans van Wees, Greek Warfare: Myth and Realities, Bloomsbury Academic, page 135:
      The agonal spirit was strong enough to inspire 'shame' at a failure to fight when the enemy offered battle, but not so strong that it made armies accept battle under any circumstances.
    • 2006, Stan Goff, Sex & War, Soft Skull Press, page 175:
      It is because the very basis of their world view, emerging from the deepest recesses of their psyches where their most basic identities were formed from birth – long before they experienced the agonal reality of class – affectively consolidated in the emotional hothouses of their families, is sexuality.
  2. Of or pertaining to the pain of death.
    • 1894, Ludvig Hektoen, “A Specimen of Four Healed, Ascending, Ileal Invaginations, Symmetrical and Equidistant”, in Judson Daland, Joseph Price Tunis, Boardman Reed, Walter Lytle Pyle, editors, International Medical Magazine, Volume 2, page 1010:
      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.
    • 1981, Michael C. Powanda, Peter G. Canonico, Infection: the Physiologic and Metabolic Responses of the Host, Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press, page 117:
      In contrast, severe infections are characterized by the development of hypoglycemia during the agonal stages of the disease process as a result of an impaired capacity of the liver to synthesize glucose (LaNoue et al., 1968b; Yeung, 1970; McCallum and Berry, 1973).
    • 2003, Dick F. Swaab, Human Hypothalamus: Basic and Clinical Aspects, Part I, Elsevier, page 23:
      The agonal effects associated with prolonged illness may influence the pH, and subsequently a number of chemical substances in the brain.

Derived terms edit

Related terms edit

Translations edit

Anagrams edit

German edit

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): [aɡoˈnaːl]
  • (file)
  • (file)
  • Hyphenation: ago‧nal

Adjective edit

agonal (strong nominative masculine singular agonaler, not comparable)

  1. agonistic
  2. agonal

Declension edit

Further reading edit

Romanian edit

Etymology edit

Borrowed from Italian agonale.

Adjective edit

agonal m or n (feminine singular agonală, masculine plural agonali, feminine and neuter plural agonale)

  1. agonal

Declension edit

Spanish edit

Etymology edit

From Latin [Term?].

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): /aɡoˈnal/ [a.ɣ̞oˈnal]
  • Rhymes: -al
  • Syllabification: a‧go‧nal

Adjective edit

agonal m or f (masculine and feminine plural agonales)

  1. agonistic

Further reading edit