angustiaban

Angustiaban is the imperfect indicative form of the Spanish verb angustiar, used with third-person plural subjects. It translates roughly as “they were distressed” or “they used to distress,” depending on the context. The verb angustiar means to cause distress, worry, or anxiety, or to become distressed oneself.

Grammatically, angustiaban follows the regular -ar verb conjugation in the imperfect tense. The endings for -ar verbs in this tense are -aba, -abas, -aba, -ábamos, -abais, -aban, so -aban corresponds to the third-person plural form. The imperfect tense expresses ongoing or repeated past actions or states, as opposed to the completed action indicated by the preterite (angustiaron) or the infinitive.

Usage notes include that angustiar is transitive: a subject can distress another person or oneself may be distressed by something. The construction often involves an indirect object pronoun or a noun phrase indicating the person affected, e.g., “Las noticias angustiaban a los familiares” (The news distressed the relatives), or “A los niños les angustiaban las tormentas” (The storms distressed the children). In narrative writing, angustiaban helps set a background mood or describe ongoing emotional states.

Etymology: angustiar derives from angustia, meaning anguish or distress, which itself comes from a root related to narrow or tightness and has Latin and Romance-language cognates. The noun angustia and the related adjective angustioso share the same root, from which the verb form angustiar is built.