misery
Americannoun
plural
miseries-
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
-
a cause or source of distress.
-
Older Use.
-
a pain.
a misery in my left side.
-
Often miseries. a case or period of despondency or gloom.
-
noun
-
intense unhappiness, discomfort, or suffering; wretchedness
-
a cause of such unhappiness, discomfort, etc
-
squalid or poverty-stricken conditions
-
informal a person who is habitually depressed
he is such a misery
-
dialect a pain or ailment
Related Words
See sorrow.
Etymology
Origin of misery
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English miserie, from Latin miseria, equivalent to miser “wretched” + -ia -y 3
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.
They described Koohkan, who had one brother, as "someone who didn't like to see people in this state... in this misery".
From BBC
Everything feels so wet and lush this January that it’s hard to imagine that a fire in the same month, a year ago, could have caused so much misery.
From Los Angeles Times
Drizzle arrived in the final moments of day two of the fifth Ashes Test but this was a day English misery poured.
From BBC
Far from ushering in a better future, the 30 years since then have been a period of almost unbroken misery for the Haitian people.
From BBC
Whether it’s the idea that misery loves company or that everyone endures and overcomes some sort of hardship, a glimmer of hope exists in a future that is unwritten.
From Salon
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.
