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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

It wallows in angst and stress but has no psychological depth, sticking to bromides like “You’re special” and “Be yourself.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

Overnight temperatures won’t fall much below 70 degrees in many locations near Los Angeles, which will increase the risk of heat stress, Cohen said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026

Kilgore didn't always know she wanted to be an entrepreneur but growing up she saw first-hand the stress that financial insecurity could cause.

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026

And now she is saying the stress of working those late hours has caused her to take a leave of absence.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026

When Moss sat down across from his mother that night at their tiny dining room table, stomach aching from stress and hunger, his mother was quick to the point.

From "Anger Is a Gift" by Mark Oshiro

Myerscough, a civil engineer, said the painstaking process of fossil hunting helped his worries and stresses to "melt away".

From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026

"Worries or stresses kind of melt away as you're focused," he said, comparing it to the mindfulness people can get from yoga, sport or watching a film.

From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026

"Our studies highlight that proinsulin folding is vulnerable to many of the same cellular stresses that cause beta cell failure in type 2 diabetes," said Kaufman.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 28, 2026

Morton, looking out for Circe, stresses that transforming Odysseus’ men was not purely vengeful.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

She stresses the verb confessing as if their father were actually being pious in looking ahead for his daughters.

From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez

The companies stressed that the closures were precautionary and that contingency plans had been activated to protect personnel and sensitive facilities.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026

She stressed that a combination of factors led to an existing shortage worsening to crisis level.

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026

In a Wednesday social media post announcing the development, the Ojai Raptor Center stressed that Jackie “remains a very sick patient” and continues to receive intensive treatment in a regular hospital care unit.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026

He stressed that Gottheimer has expressed opposition to some legislation that would preempt state AI laws.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026

Chip evidently forgot that he was too stressed out to look.

From "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix

The Financial Times looks at the Burnham government's "bid to soothe 'public control' anxiety" through "stressing the new administration's desire to attract private capital into key sectors of the economy".

From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026

It is worth stressing Bamba has made only 12 competitive starts in all competitions for Monaco.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026

While stressing that officials needed to make a comprehensive assessment, he said he saw "no emergency exit signage, emergency lighting systems or fire alarm devices".

From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 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

Meanwhile, the judge kept stressing that the evidence wasn't newly discovered and should have been presented at trial, so it couldn't create a basis for a stay of execution.

From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson

Related Words

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