distress
/dɪˈstɹɛs/
distress noun: physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature.
Noun
distress (countable and uncountable, plural distresses)
- Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature.
- To heighten his distress, he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided for his perfidy in concealing from her his former connexions (with that unhappy girl who is here present with her child, the innocent offspring of her amours, fainting at the sight of his misfortunes, being unable to...1833, John Trusler, chapter 8, in The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2011
- At any other time Jessamy would have laughed at the expressions that chased each other over his freckled face: crossness left over from his struggle with the baby; incredulity; distress; and finally delight.1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 122
- A cause of such discomfort.
- Synonyms:
- hardship, sorrow, affliction, aggrievance, grief, grievance, misery, ruth, sadness, undelight
- Serious danger.
- a ship in distress
- I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress, and that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these gun for signals of distress, and to obtain help.1719, Daniel Defoe, chapter 13, in Robinson Crusoe, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2012
- An aversive state of stress to which a person cannot fully adapt.
- Antonyms:
- eustress
- A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.
- The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.
- If he were not paid, he would straight go and take a distress of goods and cattle.1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […]...
- The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for.1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC
Verb
distress (third-person singular simple present distresses, present participle distressing, simple past and past participle distressed)
- To cause strain or anxiety to someone.
- She respects me, no doubt, but has no longer any passionate feeling for me, and my death will distress her without plunging her in despair.1827, Stendhal, chapter 31, in Armance, archived from the original on 26 Sep 2011
- To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.
- This power of distress, as anciently used, became as oppressive as the feudal forfeiture. It was as hard for the tenant to be stripped in an instant of all his goods, for arrears of rent, as to be turned out of the possession of his farm.1894, James Kent with William Hardcastle Browne, Commentaries on American Law, page 645
- Synonyms:
- distrain
- To treat a new object to give it an appearance of age.
- a pair of distressed jeans
- She distressed the new media cabinet so that it fit with the other furniture in the room.
distress meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
distress in Hindi
- (cause of) discomfort
- तनाव tanāv, दुख dukh
- serious danger
- संकट saṅkaṭ, आपदा āpdā, विपत्ति vipatti
- medicine, psychology: state of maladaptive stress
- तनाव tanāv
distress in Tamil
- துயரம், துயர், துன்பம், வேதனை, இடர்பாடு, இடுக்கண்
distress in Marathi
- distress, discomposure, disquietude
- उद्वेग udveg
distress in Urdu
- distress
- کٹھنائی kaṭhinā'ī
- distress, anguish
- ضرر zarar
More languagesFewer languages
- distress in Bengali
- ব্যথা bêtha
- distress in Telugu
- ఆరాటం ārāṭaṁ, సంతాపము santāpamu, తహతహ tahataha, నెవ్వ nevva
- distress in Malayalam
- ശോകം śōkaṁ, ക്ലേശം klēśaṁ, പൊറുതിമുട്ടൽ poṟutimuṭṭal, പരിഭ്രമം paribhramaṁ
- distress in Kannada
- ಹೇವ hēva
- distress in Punjabi
- ਭੀੜ bhīṛ, ਕਲੇਸ਼ kaleś
- distress in Sanskrit
- दुःख duḥkha, शोक śoka, क्लेश kleśa, आपद् āpad
- distress in Arabic
- مِحْنَة miḥna
- distress in Malay
- distres
- distress in Indonesian
- distres, gawat
Examples of distress in a sentence
- At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always ready to give every assistance in their power to their fellow-creatures in distress.1759, Voltaire, chapter 42, in Candide, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2011:
- If you don't want to be considered a dude you should distress your binoculars in the way that antique dealers distress new paintings to make them look old.1980, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, page 58:
Synonyms of distress
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of distress
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | distresses |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | distresses |
| present participle | distressing |
| past participle | distressed |
| past | distressed |
Origin of distress
The verb is from Middle English distressen, from Old French destrecier (“to restrain, constrain, put in straits, afflict, distress”); compare French détresse. Ultimately from Medieval Latin as if *districtiō, an assumed frequentative form of Latin distringō (“to pull asunder, stretch out”), from dis- (“apart”) + stringō (“to draw tight, strain”). The noun is from Middle English distresse, from Old French destrece, ultimately also from Latin distringō.
Words formed from distress
Phrases with distress
Words that rhyme with distress
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- SMS
- success
- compress
- largesse
- ness
- profess
- confess
- regress
- depress
- excess
- guess
- prepossess
- undress
- CBS
- ingress
- oppress
- redress
- transgress
- assess
- cess
- duress
- fess
- fluoresce
- Hesse
- less
- mayoress
- obsess
- tress
- unless
- yes
- accresce
- acquiesce
- aggress
- BESS
- caress
- clothes press
- congress
- defervesce
- digress
- ess
- foulness
- Hess
- intumesce
- jess
- lazy S
- liquesce
- repress
- second-guess
Questions about distress
- What does distress mean?
- Distress means physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature.
- What is distress in Hindi?
- Distress in Hindi is तनाव (tanāv), दुख (dukh), संकट (saṅkaṭ). See Distress meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use distress in a sentence?
- At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always ready to give every assistance in their power to their fellow-creatures in distress.
- What part of speech is distress?
- Distress can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce distress?
- Distress is pronounced /dɪˈstɹɛs/.
- What is the plural of distress?
- The plural of distress is distresses.
Words near distress in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: distress (page history and authors); distress (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); उद्वेग (Marathi) (page history and authors); ضرر (Urdu) (page history and authors); ব্যথা (Bengali) (page history and authors); ఆరాటం (Telugu) (page history and authors); അല്ലൽ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ಹೇವ (Kannada) (page history and authors); ਕਲੇਸ਼ (Punjabi) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-distress.ogg.
Cite this entry: “distress.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/distress. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.