How to Use paroxysm in a Sentence

paroxysm

noun
  • He went into paroxysms of laughter.
  • Yes, my son falls into paroxysms of despair over the feel of his socks.
    — Nicole Graev Lipson, Washington Post, 28 Feb. 2020
  • Everything pushed to paroxysm, to the very sources of the tragic.
    — Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 1 July 2017
  • Preparing a tax return can trigger paroxysms of stress at the best of times.
    — Daniel De Visé, USA Today, 30 Mar. 2026
  • Still, Abreu isn’t the player that inspires fist pumps or a paroxysm of groans from the rest of the room.
    — Michael Beller, SI.com, 22 Feb. 2018
  • Just the equivalent of a few grains of salt can send you into sudden paroxysms of heaven; a few more grains will kill you.
    — Andrew Sullivan, Daily Intelligencer, 20 Feb. 2018
  • Italy Etna had yet another paroxysm last week, but this one was lost somewhat to poor weather.
    — Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 2 Dec. 2013
  • This, in turn, touched off a paroxysm of media takes about whether such confrontations broke the bounds of civility.
    — Jason Linkins, The New Republic, 9 Oct. 2021
  • Lenin fell off it, hurled to the ground by the townsfolk of Lanchkhuti in the first joyful paroxysm of their liberation.
    — Christopher Helman, Forbes, 19 Apr. 2023
  • The result is an epic paroxysm which blows out a massive wave of material, expanding in a sphere around the star.
    — Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 10 Oct. 2012
  • That may be sufficient to save the lives of many, either from the paroxysm itself or any subsequent tsunami.
    — New York Times, 18 Mar. 2021
  • The resulting paroxysm of an action sequence, one that would be easy to adapt to other movie genres, is novel and great.
    — Jacqueline Detwiler, Popular Mechanics, 19 Oct. 2015
  • For the left, this is just the latest paroxysm of a dysfunctional and doomed capitalism.
    — The Economist, 14 Nov. 2019
  • Even with all that intensity of eruption, the paroxysm was over in only 50 minutes.
    — Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 3 Dec. 2015
  • Thinking about my mother, at home without me, sent me into paroxysms of tears – big, rolling sobs that welled up from someplace deep and uncharted.
    — Various Staff Writers, Special Correspondents, and Special Contributors, The Christian Science Monitor, 22 Dec. 2023
  • Diana was just 36, and her death sent Britain into a paroxysm of grief at her loss and rage against the royal family.
    — Sarah Lyall, New York Times, 13 Nov. 2023
  • Much better, the patient exclaimed, but then exploded into a paroxysm of coughing.
    — New York Times, 16 Feb. 2022
  • When the fan was turned on, the strips fluttered, which sent the English bulldog into a paroxysm of both agitation and joy.
    — Cady Lang, Time, 14 Oct. 2019
  • But the paroxysm convulsing the country in its 75th year is wholly internal.
    — Karl Vick, Time, 27 July 2023
  • Sittenfeld sets her action in 2018, decades after that paroxysm of genius has passed.
    — Ron Charles, Washington Post, 28 Mar. 2023
  • For Fu, a 24-year-old graduate student in Beijing, this month’s paroxysms don’t change much on the ground.
    — Janis MacKey Frayer, NBC News, 12 Oct. 2024
  • That match included a paroxysm of goals — five in 30 minutes — and then a barren stretch that taunted both teams, one more than another.
    — Ben Shpigel, New York Times, 3 Dec. 2022
  • And in these early stages, both customers and analysts appear to see the delays as normal—and preferable to combustive paroxysm.
    — Sarah Scoles, WIRED, 6 July 2018
  • The post is now nearing a hundred million views and inspiring paroxysms of millennial self-reckoning.
    — Kyle Chayka, New Yorker, 13 Aug. 2025
  • And then came Syria’s equalizer, sending the crowds into paroxysms of delight and disbelief.
    — Louisa Loveluck, Washington Post, 5 Sep. 2017
  • One to two weeks after the first symptoms start, people may develop paroxysms, or coughing fits, that usually last one to six weeks but can last up to 10 weeks.
    — Gabe Hauari, USA TODAY, 5 June 2024
  • From the moment the signal is detected, everyone has up to 10 minutes to react before the paroxysm arrives.
    — New York Times, 18 Mar. 2021
  • And every few months, photos of Princess Diana in sweatshirts and bike shorts will send the fashionable and the online into paroxysms of delight.
    — Madeleine Aggeler, New York Times, 31 Mar. 2023
  • As these images played to a global audience riveted by the drama at the airport, the West, in a paroxysm of regret, opened its arms to Afghan refugees.
    — New York Times, 10 Dec. 2021
  • In July 2019, a paroxysm killed a hiker and injured several others.
    — New York Times, 18 Mar. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'paroxysm.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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