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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  

/ 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 ² British  

suffix

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

   songstress

   seamstress

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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

Both researchers stress that the computer simulations need to be confirmed through additional modeling and direct measurements during future lunar missions.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 13, 2026

In January, he suffered an unusual injury to his foot - a stress fracture in an area even specialists had not seen before.

From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026

"Extremely hot daytime highs combined with potentially record-warm overnight lows will result in increasing heat stress, leading to widespread major to locally extreme HeatRisk," the agency said.

From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026

The next big chapter in the AI narrative, the next stress test for the industry and its capex plans, is looming as results for the hyperscalers start to appear from July 22.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 10, 2026

“On a scale of one to ten,” I said to Fig, “rate your current stress level.”

From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas

The EU stresses the levy will be paid by the importer, not the consumer.

From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026

You are most like class and least like class when comparing how you answered with our survey respondents for anxieties and stresses.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026

As Robert Zaldivar stresses, the only way to protect L.A.’s Latino HIV-positive community is to support remaining HIV services to get tested or donate to local service organizations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 23, 2026

The water bottle will immediately recognise when you've had a sufficient quantity of liquid, stresses Bakiş.

From BBC ● Jun. 22, 2026

But they did not count on the grueling traffic, on how far away everything seems, on how much is asked of volunteers to sustain the community, or on the stresses of a breadwinner’s travels.

From "Class Matters" by The New York Times

"Professor Heremans always stressed the importance of trusting the data first and letting the theory follow."

From Science Daily ● Jul. 11, 2026

“I have been so stressed watching a young person search for a job,” she said.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 11, 2026

Volkswagen executives have repeatedly stressed the need for the company to slim down as collapsing sales in China have started to look less like a blip and more like a new normal.

From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026

At the same time, he stressed the need for the vehicles to be held to the same standard as human drivers in responding to law enforcement.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026

We didn’t fight often, and when we did, it was typically over petty things, a string of pent-up aggravations that surfaced usually when one or both of us got overly fatigued or stressed.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama

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

Newman said it was likely left there by an "irresponsible owner", stressing it is illegal to release non-native species into the wild because of the biodiversity impact.

From BBC ● Jun. 9, 2026

When the IRS settled cases, “it’s typical to get rid of past ongoing audits,” Blanche said, stressing that the deal was looking back and not ahead.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 5, 2026

“The Council will want to keep all options on the table, stressing again the high level of uncertainty, the need for vigilance, and its readiness to act.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 5, 2026

He’d been cool with us at first, but Stan had warmed him up fast, telling him what we were up to, stressing our desire for the cheapest shirts available—any color, any size, any vintage.

From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx

Related Words

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