A Harrowing Experience
The word harrow has two definitions:
1. To break up and level (soil or land) with a harrow.
2. To inflict great distress or torment on.
We often refer to a dangerous or stressful incident as a “harrowing experience.”
As for the literal meaning, though — harrow is both the action of breaking up ground and the tool used to do it — I think that for years I had mistakenly been picturing a hoe.
Actually, a harrow is this terrifying web of spikes:
(Hey, we’re Manhattan Prep — what do we know about farming?)
So, a harrowing experience makes you feel as though someone dragged that over you! Yikes.
A similarly horrifying metaphor is found in the word excoriate, which we use to mean “to criticize harshly,” but which literally means “to run so hard as to wear the skin off of.” You could certainly excoriate someone with a harrow.
Also, here’s something interesting — the use of harrow as a metaphor is first attributed to Shakespeare, in Hamlet:
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres.
Harrow is also related to the verb harry:
1. To disturb or distress by or as if by repeated attacks; harass. See Synonyms at harass.
2. To raid, as in war; sack or pillage.
According to Etymonline, harry comes from the Old English hergian (“make war, lay waste, ravage, plunder”), the word used in the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” for what the Vikings did to England. So, when you say that you’re feeling harried due to all your responsibilities, you’re probably exaggerating a bit.
You can get a harrow like this one here.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and that we here at Manhattan Prep are making the GRE a less harrowing experience for you.