distressed

Syllables: dis·tressed/dɪˈstɹɛst/

distressed adjective: anxious or uneasy. Also the simple past and past participle of distress.

Adjective

distressed (comparative more distressed, superlative most distressed)

Anxious or uneasy.
- She is distressed because she can't find her keys.
- Oh that thou wer't not, poore distreſſed ſoule.c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
Synonyms:

distraught, heartsore, pained, unglued, agonised/agonized, tormented, tortured
(usually) Damaged.
Offered for sale after foreclosure.
(usually) Faded or abused in order to appear old, or antique.
- Distressed jeans bear all the signs of exertion, while the consumer never has to lift a finger. What could be more luxurious than that?2022, Carolyn Purnell, Blue Jeans, Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 44
- Lawyers for Hirst accepted that his works had on occasion “been made to look older or distressed”.2024 March 19, Maeve McClenaghan, “Damien Hirst formaldehyde animal works dated to 1990s were made in 2017”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
Experiencing financial or operational distress, default, or bankruptcy.
- distressed debt
- Funds that buy “distressed” debt, which typically yields ten percentage points or more over Treasuries, are becoming familiar villains.2019 November 7, “Distressed debt funds are waiting for a downturn”, in The Economist, →ISSN

Also used as

distressed is also the simple past and past participle of distress.

distressed meaning in Hindi, Malayalam, Gujarati and Sanskrit

distressed in Hindi

anxious or uneasy: खिन्न khinn, संतप्त santapt

distressed in Malayalam

വിഷമിച്ചു, വിഷമത്തിലായി, വിഷമം

distressed in Gujarati

વ્યથિત, પરેશાન

distressed in Sanskrit

anxious or uneasy: खिन्न khinna

Examples of distressed in a sentence

Wee are troubled on euery side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despaire,1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Corinthians 4:8:
Sam Zell called himself “the Grave Dancer”, even though, as he explained, his penchant for buying distressed assets “wasn’t so much dancing on graves as …raising the dead”.2023 May 25, “What properties would Sam Zell invest in next?”, in The Economist, →ISSN:
One multibillion-dollar firm that specialises in distressed debt called X's debt “uninvestable”.2023 December 16, “Musk told lenders they would not lose money on Twitter deal”, in FT Weekend (Companies & Markets section), London: The...

All 33 example sentences with distressed

Synonyms of distressed

All synonyms of distressed

Forms of distressed

comparative	more distressed
superlative	most distressed

Words formed from distressed

Phrases with distressed

distressed sales

Words that rhyme with distressed

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about distressed

What does distressed mean?: Distressed means anxious or uneasy.
What is distressed in Hindi?: Distressed in Hindi is खिन्न (khinn), संतप्त (santapt). See Distressed meaning in Hindi.
How do you use distressed in a sentence?: Wee are troubled on euery side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despaire,
What part of speech is distressed?: Distressed is an adjective.
How do you pronounce distressed?: Distressed is pronounced /dɪˈstɹɛst/.

Words near distressed in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: distressed (page history and authors); distressed (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); distressed (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-distressed.wav.

Cite this entry: “distressed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/distressed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.