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stressed

adjective · verb

Form of stress , past tense of stress.

Simple meaning

Feeling worried and under pressure; also given extra emphasis in speech.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

strehst
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

stɹɛst

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.

adjective

  1. Suffering stress (either physical or mental).

  2. phonetics

    Having a stress or accent.

verb

  1. past tense of stress

    To apply emotional pressure to (a person or animal).

  2. To emphasise (a syllable of a word).

    “"Emphasis" is stressed on the first syllable, but "emphatic" is stressed on the second.”

  3. To emphasise (words in speaking).

  4. To emphasise (a point) in an argument or discussion.

    “I must stress that this information is given in strict confidence.”

  5. To apply force to (a body or structure) causing strain.

  6. past tense of stress

    To suffer stress; to worry or be agitated.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

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More ways to use stressed

  • “An iambic foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable as in `delay'”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

repeatedly stressedstressed syllable

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • stressnounBase word

    The relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch).

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: suffering stress (either physical or mental)

Antonyms

Sense: suffering stress (either physical or mental)

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API (CC BY-SA 3.0). Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.