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agony [agony 词源字典]: agony: [14] Agony is one of the more remote relatives of that prolific Latin verb agere (see AGENT). Its ultimate source is the Greek verb ágein ‘lead’, which comes from the same Indo- European root as agere. Related to ágein was the Greek noun agón, originally literally ‘a bringing of people together to compete for a prize’, hence ‘contest, conflict’ (which has been borrowed directly into English as agon, a technical term for the conflict between the main characters in a work of literature).

Derived from agón was agōníā ‘(mental) struggle, anguish’, which passed into English via either late Latin agōnia or French agonie. The sense of physical suffering did not develop until the 17th century; hitherto, agony had been reserved for mental stress. The first mention of an agony column comes in the magazine Fun in 1863.
=> antagonist[agony etymology, agony origin, 英语词源]
irrepressible (adj.): 1767, from assimilated form of in- (1) "not, opposite of" + repressible (see repress).
Increase of population, which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results.

Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefor ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. [William H. Seward, speech at Rochester, N.Y., Oct. 2, 1858]
Related: Irrepressibly.
tertium quid (n.): something indeterminate between two other things, 1724, Latin, literally "third something," from tertius "third, a third," from the root of tres "three" (see three). A loan-translation of Greek triton ti (Plato), used in alchemy for "unidentified element present in a combination of two known ones." The Latin word also figures in phrases tertium non datur "no third possibility exists," and tertius gaudens "a third party that benefits from conflict between the other two."
War of 1812: In reference to the conflict between the U.S. and Great Britain, so called in U.S. by 1815.