misery
Americannoun
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miseries
plural
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wretchedness of condition or circumstances.
- Synonyms:
- trial, tribulation, suffering
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distress or suffering caused by need, privation, or poverty.
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great mental or emotional distress; extreme unhappiness.
- Synonyms:
- desolation, torment, woe, anguish, grief
- Antonyms:
- happiness
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a cause or source of distress.
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Older Use.
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a pain.
a misery in my left side.
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Often miseries. a case or period of despondency or gloom.
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noun
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intense unhappiness, discomfort, or suffering; wretchedness
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a cause of such unhappiness, discomfort, etc
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squalid or poverty-stricken conditions
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informal a person who is habitually depressed
he is such a misery
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dialect a pain or ailment
Synonym Usage
See sorrow.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of misery
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English miserie, from Latin miseria, equivalent to miser “wretched” + -ia -y 3
Explanation
Misery is a state of deep unhappiness or discomfort. It's not dropping your ice cream cone. It's having a hairy monster steal your ice cream cone, eat it in one bite, and then kidnap you and carry you off to his cave. Misery describes a miserable situation and a miserable feeling. Waiting four hours in the hot sun for a concert you don't want to see and can't afford? That's misery. The only way to survive is to bring a friend who hates the band as much as you––because misery loves company.
Vocabulary lists containing misery
Inside Out & Back Again
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"The People Could Fly," Vocabulary from the folk tale
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Beowulf vocabulary
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The RAC said price rises were "showing no signs of slowing, heaping more misery onto motorists".
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2026
Their misery is only going to get worse.
From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2026
UK travellers faced more misery on Wednesday with more than 150 flights scrapped across the country, as Britain's air traffic control service scrambled to recover from a technical glitch that sparked chaos.
From Barron's ● Sep. 9, 2026
It forms brotherhood through both misery and joy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
The poor women waited, Aethra with them, while he went to summon the assembly which would decide the misery or happiness of their dead children.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
No wonder mud became “shorthand for the miseries of poverty,” Ms. Ziegelman writes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026
Apartments, in her view, have spared her from the miseries of suburban housing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2025
It’s possible artificial intelligence won’t usher us into obsolescence before it joins us in tuning out the miseries inherent to existing.
From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2025
“You cannot blame British newspapers for the miseries heaped on the Prince and Princess of Wales,” columnist Hugo Rifkind wrote in The Times of London.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 26, 2024
Her Creole had improved substantially, allowing her to take accurate notes as they described their various pains and miseries.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
