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distress

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A cause of such discomfort.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

dihstrehs

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

dɪstˈɹɛs

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A cause of such discomfort.

  2. Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature.

  3. Psychological suffering

    “The death of his wife caused him great distress.”

  4. Serious danger.

verb

  1. To cause strain or anxiety to someone.

  2. To treat a new object to give it an appearance of age.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A cause of such discomfort.

Used this way, distress is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Slightly negative
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Critical or judgemental
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use distress

  • “The patient appeared to be in distress.”noun
  • “The news of her child's illness distressed the mother.”verb
  • “The death of his wife caused him great distress.”noun

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Psychological

psychological distress

Physical

emotional distress

Other combinations

respiratory distressmental distressfetal distressgreat distressdistress syndromeeconomic distress

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • distressedadjectiveInflected form

    Generalized feeling of distress.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • distress callnounCompound term

    An internationally recognized signal sent out by a ship or plane indicating that help is needed.

  • distress signalnounCompound term

    An internationally recognized signal sent out by a ship or plane indicating that help is needed.

  • fetal distressnounCompound term

    An abnormal condition of a fetus.

  • foetal distressnounCompound term

    An abnormal condition of a fetus.

  • respiratory distress syndromenounCompound term

    An acute lung disease of the newborn (especially the premature newborn).

  • adult respiratory distress syndromenounCompound term

    Acute lung injury characterized by coughing and rales.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: cause of such discomfort

suffering

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.