ordeal: [OE] The ‘meting out of judgement’ is the etymological notion immediately underlying ordeal, but at a more primitive level still than that it denotes simply ‘distribution, giving out shares’. It comes ultimately from prehistoric Germanic *uzdailjan ‘share out’, a compound verb formed from *uz- ‘out’ and *dailjan, ancestor of English deal.
The noun derived from this was *uzdailjam, and it came to be used over the centuries for the ‘handing out of judgements’ (modern German urteil, for instance, means among other things ‘judicial verdict or sentence’). Its Old English descendant, ordāl, denoted specifically a ‘trial in which a person’s guilt or innocence were determined by a hazardous physical test, such as holding on to red-hot iron’, but the metaphorical extension to any ‘trying experience’ did not take place until as recently as the mid-17th century. => deal
ordeal (n.)
Old English ordel, ordal, "trial by physical test," literally "judgment, verdict," from Proto-Germanic noun *uz-dailjam (cognates: Old Saxon urdeli, Old Frisian urdel, Dutch oordeel, German urteil "judgment"), literally "that which is dealt out" (by the gods), from *uzdailijan "share out," related to Old English ad?lan "to deal out" (see deal (n.1)). Curiously absent in Middle English, and perhaps reborrowed 16c. from Medieval Latin or Middle French, which got it from Germanic.
The notion is of the kind of arduous physical test (such as walking blindfolded and barefoot between red-hot plowshares) that was believed to determine a person's guilt or innocence by immediate judgment of the deity, an ancient Teutonic mode of trial. English retains a more exact sense of the word; its cognates in German, etc., have been generalized.
Metaphoric extension to "anything which tests character or endurance" is attested from 1650s. The prefix or- survives in English only in this word, but was common in Old English and other Germanic languages (Gothic ur-, Old Norse or-, etc.) and originally was an adverb and preposition meaning "out."
例文
1. Mona remains unshaken by her ordeal and is matter-of-fact about her courage.
モナは彼女が経験したこの苦難に動じず、自分が見せた勇気にも淡々とした態度を示した。
2.The former hostage is in remarkably good shape considering his ordeal .
人質が苦しめられたことを考えると、救助された後の体の状態は驚くほどよくなっている。
3.Stopping only briefly to regain her composure,she described her agonising ordeal .
彼女は自分を落ち着かせるために少しだけ立ち止まった後、彼女のこの上ない苦痛の経験を語った。
4.Last night he relived his terrifying ordeal .
昨夜、彼は再びその恐ろしい拷問を体験した。
5.The ceremony was an ordeal for those who had been recently bereaved.