From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishparoxysmpar‧ox‧ys‧m /ˈpærəksɪzəm/ noun [countable] 1 a sudden expression of strong feeling that you cannot controlparoxysm of Had she cut her wrists in a paroxysm of guilt?2 MIa sudden, short attack of pain, coughing, shaking etc
Examples from the Corpus
paroxysm• With Omar gone, the house seemed to coil up in a paroxysm of eerie energy.• Or had she cut her wrists in a paroxysm of guilt?• Then she burst into a paroxysm of croaking laughter, spluttering wildly, her emaciated limbs rolling about under the covers.• If one trespasses beyond the limits, he quietly corrects the fault in a plea, never a paroxysm.• We disappear into the darkness, where nobody can see that we're not rolling around the floor in paroxysms of ecstasy.• There had been no mad paroxysm of love, with the inevitable bathos.• The house of his father contained all the acquisitiveness and greed that promised the paroxysm of class war.paroxysm of• paroxysms of coughingOrigin paroxysm (1500-1600) French paroxysme, from Greek paroxysmos, from paroxynein “to encourage into action”, from oxys “sharp” 