Synonyms for distress
- noun
- verb
Synonyms by meaning
Noun
1. Pain — A cause of such discomfort
pain, sorrow, grief, misery, hardship, trouble, affliction, calamity, perplexity, unhappiness, misfortune, woe, wretchedness, anxiety, difficulty, adversity, vexation, poverty, tribulation, pang, depression, privation
2. Anguish — physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature
Other
Verb
Definitions
- n. 1
Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature.
- n. 2
A cause of such discomfort.
- v. 1
To cause strain or anxiety to someone.
- v. 2
To treat a new object to give it an appearance of age.
a pair of distressed jeans
Related words
- Word family
- distressful distrain district
- Phrases
- distress call distress signal
- Is a kind of
- sensation
Forms
- Plural
- distresses → pains, sorrows, griefs, miseries…
- Past participle
- distressed
e.g. distressed → vexed, plagued, afflicted, harassed…
Choose the right word
Distress is too strong a word for little hurts, too feeble for the intensest suffering, but commonly applied to some continuous or prolonged trouble or need; as, the distress of a shipwrecked crew, or of a destitute family.
J. C. Fernald, English Synonyms and Antonyms (1914)
Example sentences
- pain By and large, women can bear pain better than men.
- grief There are five stages of grief. Stage one: denial.
- misery Tom blamed all his misery on planned obsolescence.
- sorrow To my sorrow, my father cannot attend the meeting.
- agony Tom mistook Mary's singing for a cry of agony.
- anguish The source of my anguish is your lack of loyalty.
By length
- 3 letters
- age1, woe1, vex1
- 4 letters
- take1, pain1, hurt1, rack1, pang1, rend
- 5 letters
- worry2, upset2, wound1, grief1, pinch1, seize1, agony3, annoy2, peril2, wring1
- 6 letters
- misery3, plague1, attach2, sorrow2, menace2, martyr2, harass2, harrow2
- 7 letters
- trouble2, anxiety4, poverty3, torture2, antique2, anguish2, torment2, griping2, afflict2, agonize3, perturb2, perplex2, agonise
- 8 letters
- exercise3, hardship2, jeopardy3, calamity4, vexation, lacerate3, straiten, distrain
- 9 letters
- suffering3, adversity4, embarrass3, extremity4, persecute3, privation3, distraint
- 10 letters
- depression3, difficulty4, attachment3, misfortune3, affliction3, perplexity4
- 11 letters
- unhappiness4, tribulation4, painfulness
- 12 letters
- wretchedness
The small number after each word is its number of syllables (worry2 = 2 syllables).