misery
Syllables: mis·eryUK/ˈmɪz(ə)ɹɪ//ˈmɪz(ə)ɹi/
misery noun: great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe.
Noun
misery (countable and uncountable, plural miseries)
- Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe.
- Ever since his wife left him you can see the misery on his face.
- For miſerie doth braueſt mindes abate, / And make them ſeeke for that they wont to ſcorne, / Of fortune and of hope at once forlorne.1578–1579, Edmund Spenser, “Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale. [...] Dedicated to the Right Honorable the Ladie Compton and Mountegle”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds...
- Synonyms:
- dejection, grief, sorrow, blueness, tristesse, mirthless, blues, crestfallenness, depression, despondency
- A bodily ache or pain.
- [...] and I had a misery in my left breast and shoulder. I was hurt, but knew not how or how much.1868, John Vestal Hadley, Seven Months a Prisoner, page 15
- Cause of misery; calamity; misfortune.
- Synonyms:
- adversity, woe, affliction, aggrievance, distress, grief, grievance, hardship, ruth, sadness
- poverty.
- The Widdow that hath but a pan of braſſe, […]
Muſt pay her Landlord many a groat,
Or twil be puld out of her throat: […]
The rich haue all, the poore liue in miſerie: […]1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act I
- Synonyms:
- beggary, brokeness, destitution, impecuniosity, impecuniousness, indigence, mendicancy, mendicity, neediness, pauperism
- The Widdow that hath but a pan of braſſe, […]
- greed; avarice.
- Synonyms:
- avarice, covetise, covetousness, cupidity, gluttony, greed, greediness, Mammon, rapaciousness, rapacity
Proper noun capitalized: Misery
Misery
- Derogatory name for Missouri: a state of the United States.
- First, the young lady whom you spoke as becoming [a] mistress of the establishment would most likely (if she could become as such) be brought into a state of misery, instead of being brought from the state of misery, (or Missouri), [...]1879 August 20, Noah Allen, “Noah in Misery-He Relieves Himself”, in The Wichita Weekly Beacon, page 3
misery meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
misery in Hindi
- great unhappiness
- दुःख duḥkh, दुर्दशा durdaśā
misery in Tamil
- அவலம், இடும்பை, கையாறு, துன்பம், எவ்வம்
misery in Urdu
- great unhappiness
- دکھ dukh
misery in Bengali
- misery, sorrow
- অঘ ogh
More languagesFewer languages
- misery in Malayalam
- ദുരിതം duritaṁ
- misery in Kannada
- ಕ್ಲೇಶ, ದುಃಖ, ಸಂಕಟ, ದುರ್ದೆಸೆ
- misery in Punjabi
- ਬਾਣੀਾਂ bāṇīā̃
- misery in Odia
- ଦୁର୍ଦ୍ଦଶା
- misery in Sanskrit
- दुःख duḥkha
- misery in Assamese
- বিলৈ biloi, দুৰ্দশা durdoxa
- misery in Nepali
- दुर्गति durgati
- misery in Arabic
- شَقَاوَة šaqāwa, تَعَاسَة taʕāsa
Examples of misery in a sentence
- It was not just the confusion that unhappiness brings, it was not just the loneliness, it was the despair that accompanies all those emotions that turns unhappiness into utter misery.2008, Charlotte Bingham, The Land of Summer:
- Then, in January, a creeping tsunami of train cancellations, triggered by major staff absences as a result of the aggressive transmissibility of Omicron, heaped further misery on rail users.2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:
Synonyms of misery
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- distress
- dolefulness
- downheartedness
- forlornness
- ill-being
- infelicity
- melancholia
- melancholy
- mourn
- sadness
- sorrowfulness
- tristfulness
- undelight
- unhappiness
- woe
- woefare
- wretchedness
- pain
- wark
- adversity
- affliction
- aggrievance
- grievance
- hardship
- vexation
- wrong
- beggary
- brokeness
- destitution
- impecuniosity
Forms of misery
| plural | miseries |
|---|
Origin of misery
From Middle English miserie, from Old French miserie (modern: misère), from Latin miseria, from miser, equivalent to miser + -y. Doublet of misère and mizeria.
Blend of Missouri + misery.
Words formed from misery
Phrases with misery
Questions about misery
- What does misery mean?
- Misery means great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe.
- What is misery in Hindi?
- Misery in Hindi is दुःख (duḥkh), दुर्दशा (durdaśā). See Misery meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use misery in a sentence?
- It was not just the confusion that unhappiness brings, it was not just the loneliness, it was the despair that accompanies all those emotions that turns unhappiness into utter misery.
- What part of speech is misery?
- Misery can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce misery?
- Misery is pronounced /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹɪ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of misery?
- The plural of misery is miseries.
Words near misery in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: misery (page history and authors); Misery (page history and authors); misery (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); অঘ (Bengali) (page history and authors); misery (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਬਾਣੀਾਂ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); misery (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); दुर्गति (Nepali) (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-misery.ogg.
Cite this entry: “misery.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/misery. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.