- writhe
- writhe, agonize, squirm are comparable when they mean to twist or turn in physical or mental distress.Writhe regularly carries vivid suggestions of convulsive contortions (as of one in the throes of death, in a paroxysm, in an instrument of torture, or in a trap) and of fruitless struggling to escape. When used in reference to physical distress, it commonly implies also great pain{
childhood and youth and age writhing in savage pains— Shelley
}When extended to refer to mental distress, it usually implies a torturing sense of shame, of bafflement, or of frustration{thus, at every march, the hidden enemy became bolder and the regiment writhed . . . under attacks it could not avenge— Kipling
}{corrupt men in the machines writhe in the presence of his obvious integrity— Helen Fuller
}Agonize sometimes evokes the image of one in the pangs of death, struggling and in anguish; sometimes it evokes the picture of one wrestling or straining arduously to achieve a difficult victory{bled, groaned, and agonized, and died in vain— Cowper
}{pages which cost a week of unremitting and agonizing labor— Huxley
}Squirm evokes images of a less dignified or a more familiar character; it usually does not imply profound distress, but great unease (as in aversion to restraint or discipline) or a shrinking or wincing (as under sarcasm or criticism){sleek-haired subalterns who squirmed painfully in their chairs when they came to call— Kipling
}{a grueling cross-examination . . . in which he is going to make me squirm in front of the grand jury— Gardner
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
