By getting into an excruciatingly uncomfortable position, it was possible to shovel earth into a wooden sledge made for the purpose, and when this was full, at a given signal it was dragged back by a man at the pit-head, whose job it was also to work the bellows.
"The Escaping Club"
A. J. Evans
To her it constitutes, apparently, an excruciatingly funny joke.
"A Top-Floor Idyl"
George van Schaick
Four children of the "grave man" were simultaneously and excruciatingly racked and tortured precisely alike, and in the same parts of their bodies, although being, some of them, in separate apartments, and ignorant of one another's complaints.
"Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism"
Allen Putnam