Path. Forms: 6–7 strangurie, 6 -ye, 7 stranguery, 7–9 stranguary, 4– strangury. [ad. L. strangūria, a. Gr. στραγγουρία, f. στραγγ-, στράγξ drop squeezed out + οὖρον urine. Cf. F. strangurie (14th c. in Hatz.-Darm.)]
1. A disease of the urinary organs characterized by slow and painful emission of urine; also the condition of slow and painful urination.
[1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., VI. xxi. (1495), 211. He that hath that dysease … that hyghte Stranguria, pyssyth ofte and lytyll.]
a. 1400–50. Stockh. Med. MS., 133. For þe strangury.
1522. More, De quat. Noviss., Wks. 77/2. Parcase ye stone or the strangurye, haue put thee … to no lesse torment.
1651. Jer. Taylor, Holy Dying, iv. § 5 (1727), 144. The Axe is much a less affliction than a strangury.
1687. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), I. 425. The lord chancellor is lately taken very ill with the stone and strangury.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., II. 584. He eat but once in 24 hours, and had never either Gout, Stone, Stranguery, or Headach.
c. 1720. W. Gibson, Farrier’s Dispens., x. (1734), 238. This is adapted to Horses that are subject to the Stone and Strangury.
1765. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, VIII. iii. I hope they have got better of their colds,… fevers, stranguries, [etc.].
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., I. xi. 488. In calculous complaints of the urinary passages and in habitual stranguaries.
1847. W. C. L. Martin, The Ox, 153/1. Sometimes there is great stranguary, but this is not an invariable symptom.
1875. H. C. Wood, Therap. (1879), 502. Complete strangury was not produced, but there was some difficulty in passing the urine.
1883. American, V. 205. M. Louis Blanc had been suffering terribly for the past two years from a strangury.
fig. 1692. Crowne, Regulus, II. Wine they will have, and have no stoppage of Wine here, give my Trade the Strangury?
¶ 2. By erroneous etymological association with STRANGLE, the word has sometimes been supposed to mean a disease due to strangling or choking.
a. fig.
1698. Farquhar, Love & Bottle, III. i. But why a Scribler, Madam?… Is my Countenance strain’d, as if my head were distorted by a Stranguary of thought?
1847. Thackeray, Contrib. to Punch, Wks. 1899, VI. 98. Everybody stopped. There was a perfect strangury in the street.
b. Bot. (See quot.; the sense appears in dictionaries, but evidence of its actual use is wanting.)
1840. Paxton, Bot. Dict., Strangury, a disease produced on plants by tight ligatures.
