1. An old term for a sore throat: Dr. Smart told Jane that she was suffering from an angina which was causing her problems with drinking or eating, and he gave her some medicine to relieve and to cure this condition.
2. Any spasmodic, choking, or suffocating pain: Susan found out that an angina can refer to to a sever infection in a person's throat.
3. Any of various diseases or conditions characterized by painful or cramping spasms: Dr. Thompson wanted to examine Mr. Smith carefully because of his suffering so much, and so he had to spend a few days in hospital so that the doctor could find out the cause of his angina.
4. Chest pain due to an inadequate supply of oxygen to the heart muscle. The chest pain of angina is typically severe and crushing. There is a feeling just behind the breastbone (the sternum) of pressure and suffocation.

Angina was first described in 1772 by the English physician William Heberden in twenty patients who suffered from "a painful and most disagreeable sensation in the breast, which seems as if it would extinguish life, if it were to increase or to continue." Such patients, he wrote, "are seized while they are walking (more especially if it be uphill, and soon after eating); but the moment they stand still, all this uneasiness vanishes."
5. Etymology: from the Latin verb angere meaning "to choke or throttle". Angina is now considered to be the same as angina pectoris, a reference to the Latin pectus, "chest". Latin angina "infection of the throat", from Greek ankhone "a strangling".

Sever pain around the heart caused by a relative deficiency of oxygen supply to the heart muscle: Angina pectoris occurs most often after increased activity, exercise, or a stressful event.

Angina pectoris causes pain or numbness which typically radiates to the left shoulder and down the left arm and may also radiate to the back or jaw.