misery
Americannoun
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wretchedness of condition or circumstances.
- Synonyms:
- trial, tribulation, suffering
-
distress or suffering caused by need, privation, or poverty.
-
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.
-
a pain.
a misery in my left side.
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Often miseries. a case or period of despondency or gloom.
-
noun
-
intense unhappiness, discomfort, or suffering; wretchedness
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a cause of such unhappiness, discomfort, etc
-
squalid or poverty-stricken conditions
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informal a person who is habitually depressed
he is such a misery
-
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:
Exacerbating the misery will be the lack of cooling temperatures overnight.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
They agreed that being exactly right all of the time wasn’t worth the misery of waiting so long to witness a goal—and then being robbed of that moment of ecstasy when it gets overturned.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
She "struggled on" with "tremendous pain and misery" after her breakdown as a teenager until it all came to a head one day in her late 20s.
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
But at The Wall Street Journal, we wanted to dig a little deeper and quantify all this merriment and misery: Who exactly is having the best and worst time, scientifically speaking, at this World Cup?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
In spite of her misery, the idea was so silly Nhamo gave him a watery smile.
From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer
No wonder mud became “shorthand for the miseries of poverty,” Ms. Ziegelman writes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026
Perhaps most painful among the nurses’ many miseries is their isolation: the secrets they keep in hopes of sparing their loved ones an iota of extra suffering.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 24, 2025
That unfamiliarity also means these men have no idea what’s in store for them, or what actions will trigger a Housewife’s past miseries.
From Salon ● May 5, 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
At their first meeting after the estrangement, Bernard poured out the tale of his miseries and accepted consolation.
From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
Definitions 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.
