duress
Syllables: du·ress/djʊˈɹɛs/US/duˈɹɛs/
duress noun: harsh treatment.
Noun
duress (uncountable)
- Harsh treatment.
- […]the agreements[…]made with their landlords, during the time of ſlavery, are only the effect of dureſſe and force;[…].1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, page...
- Constraint by threat.
- It is unclear when it was filmed and if she was under duress during filming.2023 October 17, Kim Willsher, “Mother of French-Israeli hostage begs for her return as Hamas releases video”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
- Restraint in which a person is influenced, whether by lawful or unlawful forceful compulsion of their liberty by monition or implementation of physical enforcement; legally for the incurring of civil liability, of a citizen's arrest, or of subrogation, or illegally for the committing of an offense, of forcing a contract, or of using threats.
Verb
duress (third-person singular simple present duresses, present participle duressing, simple past and past participle duressed)
- To put under duress; to pressure.
- Someone was duressing her.
- The small nation was duressed into giving up territory.
duress meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
duress in Hindi
- duress, coercion
- बाध्यता bādhyatā
duress in Tamil
- சட்டத்தை மீறிய வலுக்கட்டாயம், குந்தல்
duress in Urdu
- مجبوری, قید
duress in Bengali
- জবরদস্তি, বলপ্রয়োগ
More languagesFewer languages
- duress in Malayalam
- ബലാൽക്കാരം, സമ്മർദ്ദം, സമ്മർദ്ദനം, നിർബന്ധം
- duress in Kannada
- ನಿರ್ಬಂಧ, ಬಲವಂತ, ಬಲಾತ್ಕಾರ, ಸೆರೆ
- duress in Arabic
- إكْرَاه ʔikrāh
- duress in Persian
- اکراه
Forms of duress
| third-person singular present | duresses |
|---|---|
| present participle | duressing |
| past participle | duressed |
| past | duressed |
Origin of duress
Inherited from Middle English duresse, from Old French duresse, from Latin dūritia (“hardness”), from dūrus (“hard”).
Words formed from duress
Phrases with duress
Words that rhyme with duress
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- SMS
- success
- compress
- largesse
- ness
- profess
- confess
- distress
- regress
- depress
- excess
- guess
- prepossess
- undress
- CBS
- ingress
- oppress
- redress
- transgress
- assess
- cess
- 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 duress
- What does duress mean?
- Duress means harsh treatment.
- What is duress in Hindi?
- Duress in Hindi is बाध्यता (bādhyatā). See Duress meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is duress?
- Duress can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce duress?
- Duress is pronounced /djʊˈɹɛs/ (UK).
Words near duress in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: duress (page history and authors); बाध्यता (Hindi) (page history and authors); duress (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); duress (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Duress (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); duress (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); duress (Kannada Wiktionary) (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:
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Cite this entry: “duress.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/duress. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.