stressed-out
Americanadjective
Usage
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.
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.
"The Pitt" -- a cross between "ER" and "24," and last year's winner for best drama -- follows the stressed-out workers in a Pittsburgh emergency room, with each episode unfolding in real time.
From Barron's ● Jul. 8, 2026
I needed to know: Could this work for me, a stressed-out reporter with zero patience, who had never successfully meditated before?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
What she views as playful antics look like stressed-out apes bouncing off their steel mesh walls.
From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2024
One of p53’s roles is to orchestrate cellular senescence, telling stressed-out, unruly cells to stop dividing before they cause problems.
From Science Magazine ● May 16, 2024
My friend was also stressed-out from a long week of hospital work, and from trying to figure out what unusual risk factors might have brought on the strange illness.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
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