martirio

martyrdom

noun mar-TEE-ryoh Rare

Origin: From Greek 'martyrion' (witness, martyr).

Also means

ordeal, torment

Usage Note

Martirio originally denotes the suffering and death endured for religious faith, as in il martirio di San Sebastiano. In everyday speech it is used hyperbolically for any prolonged, exhausting ordeal: questa riunione è un martirio ('this meeting is torture'). It is masculine and its plural is martiri — do not confuse with martire (martyr, the person), whose plural is also martiri, creating an identical plural for two different words.

Examples

"Quel viaggio in autobus fu un vero martirio."

Natural Translation

That bus journey was a real ordeal.

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