stressed-out

[strest-out]

adjective

1. afflicted with or incapacitated by stress.

When To Use

What does stressed-out mean?

Stressed-out means experiencing a lot of emotional stress.The adjective stressed can mean the same thing. Both terms often imply that the level of stress is intense or higher than usual—that stress has built up and is becoming hard to deal with.The phrasal verb stress out can mean to experience stress, as in Don’t stress out about the meeting—it’s not a big deal. It can also mean to cause someone to experience stress, as in You’re really stressing me out. The term stressed-out comes from the past tense of this sense: someone who is stressed-out has been stressed out by someone or something (or, as is often the case, by a combination of different factors).Stressed-out is commonly spelled without a hyphen, as stressed out.Example: During the week of final exams, the library is filled with stressed-out students frantically trying to study.