miserable

Syllables: mis·er·a·ble/ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/

miserable adjective: in a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.

Adjective

miserable (comparative more miserable, superlative most miserable)

In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
- Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn...1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans...
- With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
Synonyms:

atrabiliary, atrabilious, blitheless, dispirited, blue, bummed out, chapfallen, cheerless, chopfallen, crestfallen
Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent; hopeless.
- He's good at some sports, like tennis, but he's just miserable at football.
Synonyms:

amateurish, backwards, bad, bungling, clumsy, ham-fisted, ham-handed, inapt, incapable, incompetent
Of the weather, extremely unpleasant due to being cold, wet, overcast, etc.

Synonyms:

cheerless, comfortless, bleak, dark, morose, depressing, desolate, dire, disconsolate, dismal
Wretched; worthless; mean; contemptible.
- a miserable sinner
- In a month's collecting at Wonosalem and Djapannan I accumulated ninety-eight species of birds, but a most miserable lot of insects.1869, Alfred Russel Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, volume I, London: Macmillan and Co., page 172
Synonyms:

abject, filthy, base, beggarly, blameworthy, carrion, cheap, choical, contemptible, cringing
(obsolete) Causing unhappiness or misery.
- For what's more miserable than discontent?c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […]...
Synonyms:

atrabiliary, atrabilious, deplorable, depressing, distressing, grievous, heartbreaking, heartrending, lamentable, lachrymable
(obsolete) Avaricious; niggardly; miserly.
- the liberal-hearted man is by the opinion of the prodigal miserable, and by the judgment of the miserable lavish[1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page)
Synonyms:

as tight as Dick's hatband, cheap, cheeseparing, chintzy, close, close as wax, close-fisted, illiberal, mean, miserly
Negative minded, unpleasant to be around.

Noun

miserable (plural miserables)

A miserable person; a wretch.
- Dona Carmen repaired to the balcony to chat and jest with, and at, these miserables, who stopped before the door to rest in their progress. All pretended poverty while literally groaning under the weight of their riches.1838, The Foreign Quarterly Review, volume 21, page 181
- The charge that those who played Jesus in these representations were treated badly by the plays' Jews and Romans left one commissioner cold: in his view, these miserables were beaten much less severely by the players than they were by their actual lords or curacas.2003, Richard C. Trexler, Reliving Golgotha: The Passion Play of Iztapalapa, pages 46–47
(in plural, informal, with-definite-article) A state of misery or melancholy.
- By 3:00 P.M. both DeeDee and Sandra's pants were thoroughly soaked, and this unhappy circumstance gave DeeDee a bad case of the miserables.1984, Barbara Wernecke Durkin, Oh, You Dundalk Girls, Can't You Dance the Polka?, page 10

miserable meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

miserable in Hindi

in a state of misery: दुःखी duḥkhī, उदास udās, दयनीय daynīya

miserable in Tamil

இரங்கத்தக்க, இழிவான, துயர் மிகுந்த, துயர்மிகுந்த, மகிழ்ச்சியற்ற, அவலமான

miserable in Urdu

آفت زدہ, بدحال, بےآرام, خستہ حال, شوم

miserable in Bengali

অত্যন্ত দুঃখী, হতভাগ্য, দুর্দশাগ্রস্ত, শোচনীয়, অত্যন্ত খারাপ, নিম্নমানের

More languagesFewer languages

miserable in Telugu: దుర్భరం
miserable in Malayalam: ദുരിതപൂർണ്ണമായ
miserable in Kannada: ದೀನ, ಅತಿಸಂಕಟಕ್ಕೆ ಈಡಾದ, ದುಃಖದಿಂದ ಕೂಡಿದ, ದಟ್ಟದಾರಿದ್ರ್ಯದ
miserable in Gujarati: દુઃખી duḥkhī, કંગાળ kaṅgāḷ
miserable in Odia: ଦୁର୍ଦ୍ଦଶାପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ
miserable in Sanskrit: दीन dīna
miserable in Nepali: दुर्दशापूर्ण
miserable in Arabic: بَائِس bāʔis
miserable in Vietnamese: khốn khổ

Examples of miserable in a sentence

Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self.1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The...
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not.1910, George Bernard Shaw, A Treatise on Parents and Children:

All 40 example sentences with miserable

Synonyms of miserable

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of miserable

Forms of miserable

Adjective
comparative	more miserable
superlative	most miserable
Noun
plural	miserables

Origin of miserable

Borrowed from Middle French miserable, from Old French, from Latin miserabilis, equivalent to miser + -able.

Words formed from miserable

Questions about miserable

What does miserable mean?: Miserable means in a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
What is miserable in Hindi?: Miserable in Hindi is दुःखी (duḥkhī), उदास (udās), दयनीय (daynīya). See Miserable meaning in Hindi.
How do you use miserable in a sentence?: Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self.
What part of speech is miserable?: Miserable can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce miserable?: Miserable is pronounced /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/.

Words near miserable in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: miserable (page history and authors); miserable (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); miserable (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); miserable (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); miserable (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); miserable (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); miserable (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); miserable (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); miserable (Nepali, 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: en-us-miserable.ogg.

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