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• stress
  stress

  noun

  importance attached to a thing.
• -stress
  -stress

  a feminine equivalent of -ster.

stress

¹ American  

[stres] / strɛs /

noun

stresses plural

1. importance attached to a thing.

   to lay stress upon good manners.

   Synonyms:

   worth, value, weight, consequence, emphasis, meaning, significance

2. Phonetics. emphasis in the form of prominent relative loudness of a syllable or a word as a result of special effort in utterance.

3. Prosody. accent or emphasis on syllables in a metrical pattern; beat.

4. emphasis in melody, rhythm, etc.; beat.

5. the physical pressure, pull, or other force exerted on one thing by another; strain.

6. Mechanics.

   1. the action on a body of any system of balanced forces whereby strain or deformation results.

   2. the amount of stress, usually measured in pounds per square inch or in pascals.

   3. a load, force, or system of forces producing a strain.

   4. the internal resistance or reaction of an elastic body to the external forces applied to it.

   5. the ratio of force to area.

7. Physiology. a specific response by the body to a stimulus, as fear or pain, that disturbs or interferes with the normal physiological equilibrium of an organism.

8. physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension.

   Worry over his job and his wife's health put him under a great stress.

   Synonyms:

   strain, struggle, exertion, effort, oppression, pressure, burden, anxiety

9. a situation, occurrence, or factor causing this.

   The stress of being trapped in the elevator gave him a pounding headache.

10. Archaic. strong or straining exertion.

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verb (used with object)

stresses, present (3rd person singular) stressed, past participle, past stressing present participle

1. to lay stress on; emphasize.

2. Phonetics. to pronounce (a syllable or a word) with prominent loudness.

   Stress the first syllable of “runner.” Stress the second word in “put up with.”

3. to subject to stress or strain.

4. Mechanics. to subject to stress.

verb (used without object)

stresses, present (3rd person singular) stressed, past participle, past stressing present participle

1. to experience stress or worry.

   Don't stress about the turkey; I promise it will be delicious.

   Dad is always stressing out over his job.

-stress ² American  

1. a feminine equivalent of -ster.

   seamstress; songstress.

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-stress ¹ British  

suffix

1. indicating a woman who performs or is engaged in a certain activity Compare -ster

   songstress

   seamstress

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stress ² British  

/ strɛs /

noun

1. special emphasis or significance attached to something

2. mental, emotional, or physical strain or tension

3. emphasis placed upon a syllable by pronouncing it more loudly than those that surround it

4. such emphasis as part of a regular rhythmic beat in music or poetry

5. a syllable so emphasized

6. physics

   1. force or a system of forces producing deformation or strain

   2. the force acting per unit area

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verb

1. (tr) to give emphasis or prominence to

2. (tr) to pronounce (a word or syllable) more loudly than those that surround it

3. (tr) to subject to stress or strain

4. informal (intr) to become stressed or anxious

stress Scientific  

/ strĕs /

1. The force per unit area applied to an object. Objects subject to stress tend to become distorted or deformed.

2. Compare strain See also axial stress shear stress See more at Hooke's law

3. 1. A physiologic reaction by an organism to an uncomfortable or unfamiliar physical or psychological stimulus. Biological changes result from stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, including a heightened state of alertness, anxiety, increased heart rate, and sweating.

   2. The stimulus or circumstance causing such a reaction.

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stress ¹ Cultural  

1. In physics, the internal resistance of an object to an external force that tends to deform it.

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stress ² Cultural  

1. A physical factor, such as injury, or mental state, such as anxiety, that disturbs the body's normal state of functioning. Stress may contribute to the development of some illnesses, including heart disease and cancer.

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Usage

What does -stress mean? The form -stress is a suffix that marks a feminine agent noun, which indicates a person who does an action. This suffix is occasionally used in a variety of informal terms, but it has lost popularity in recent years. Increasingly, -stress is seen as an unnecessarily gendered suffix for forming agent nouns because it identifies the "doer" as female. The suffix -stress is a combination of two similar suffixes: Old English -estre, which marked female agent nouns, and Old French -esse (see -ess), a common feminine ending for nouns. What are variants of -stress?When agent nouns ending in -stress are used to refer to a masculine- or neutral-gendered element, -stress becomes -ster, as in seamster (a male seamstress). Want to know more? Read our Words That Use -ster article.

Discover More

The term stress also refers to the physical and mental state produced in the body when it is influenced by such factors: “The stress of the new job was too much for Tim, so he requested reassignment to his old position in the company.”

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonstress
  noun
• stressfulness
  noun
• stresslessness
  noun
• understress
  noun
• restress
  verb
• de-stress
  verb (used with object)
• understress
  verb (used with object)
• antistress
  adjective
• overstressed
  adjective
• stressful
  adjective
• stressless
  adjective
• well-stressed
  adjective
• stressfully
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• stresses
  plural

Participles

• stressing
  present
• stressed
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• stress
  simple
• stresses
  simple
• have stressed
  perfect
• has stressed
  perfect
• am stressing
  progressive
• are stressing
  progressive
• is stressing
  progressive
• have been stressing
  perfect progressive
• has been stressing
  perfect progressive

Past

• stressed
  simple
• had stressed
  perfect
• was stressing
  progressive
• were stressing
  progressive
• had been stressing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will stress
  simple
• will have stressed
  perfect
• will be stressing
  progressive
• will have been stressing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of stress¹

First recorded in 1275–1325; (noun) Middle English stresse, aphetic variant of distresse; (verb) derivative of the noun; see origin at distress

Origin of -stress²

-st(e)r + -ess

Explanation

The word stress is about pressure, whether it's pressure on a syllable of a word (TRAIN-er versus train-EE), an object (the bridge is designed to handle the stress of the cars), or a person (I am under a lot of stress). It says something about our culture, how much we love to use the word stress and keep redefining it to mean new things. The word first appeared in about 1300, when it meant hardship or a force to which someone is subjected. In the 1890s, we stretched the meaning to include "emphasizing something" and, in the middle of the 20th century, started to associate it with psychological pressure.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

stress stresses stressed stressing

Kinjo says that reefs flanking his seaside farm consist entirely of corals he cultivated, with their natural peers "no longer able to keep up with a tremendous increase in stress" in the anthropogenically polluted ocean.

From Barron's ● Jul. 29, 2026

Misfolded and defective proteins accumulate inside cells, creating stress that can damage the pancreatic cells responsible for producing insulin.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 28, 2026

"The stress and trauma that you feel as someone living here is immense."

From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026

In many ways it is designed for times of stress, not periods of calm.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

“I needed you to focus on learning the songs with as few distractions and as little stress as possible.”

From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young

Dahlia stresses there are many things on offer during the holidays that won't break the bank, such as free kids' meals in cafes and discounts on local travel.

From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026

The researchers tested the regenerated material under conditions intended to reproduce the stresses teeth experience in daily life.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 23, 2026

And he stresses that it isn’t in the president’s power to fix every economic woe.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 11, 2026

Comedy breaks away her stresses and allows viewers to be vulnerable with her.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 3, 2026

The skeletal system to which all those muscles are attached also undergoes tremendous strains and stresses.

From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown

“And Her Mother Came Too,” a song in “Dancing Honeymoon,” prompted incidents where a dancer as mother kept interloping and stressed the work’s pervasive dynamics of odd numbers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026

Authorities said the suspect is known to police and has ties to Islamist circles in Berlin but also stressed investigators have not yet determined a motive or whether he acted alone.

From Salon ● Jul. 26, 2026

"APOE2 neurons aren't just less damaged at baseline, they recover faster when stressed."

From Science Daily ● Jul. 24, 2026

The former Senegalese president has stressed the link between peace and development.

From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026

Despite our recent tragedies, he seemed less stressed about this new development than I was.

From "The Marrow Thieves" by Cherie Dimaline

"Another difficult night on the wildfire front," Nunez said on X. "The situation remains very unfavourable," he said, stressing the situation in the southwestern department of Gironde where Bordeaux is located was particularly difficult.

From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026

Experts from the Japan Academic Network for Disaster Reduction are stressing the need for heat acclimatisation as it takes several weeks for the body to adapt to high temperatures.

From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2026

He said that he was "acutely conscious" of the churn in the office behind him, stressing that the UK badly needed to regain stability.

From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2026

Concerns that old IT tools will become obsolete, stressing software borrowers, are part of the reason individual investors have yanked money from BDCs.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 3, 2026

Hanson also preceded Kuhn in stressing the importance of gestalt psychology and in laying emphasis on the philosophy of Wittgenstein.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Related Words

• agony
• anxiety
• burden
• crunch
• fear
• hardship
• hassle
• heat
• intensity
• nervousness
• strain
• tension
• trauma
• worry