distress

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Etymology 1.2 Pronunciation 1.3 Noun 1.3.1 Related terms 1.3.2 Translations 1.4 Verb 1.4.1 Translations 1.5 External links

[edit] English

Wikipedia

[edit] Etymology

From Middle English < Old French destresser (“‘to restrain, constrain, put in straits, afflict, distress’”) (French: détresse) < Mediaeval Latin as if *districtiare, an assumed freq. form of Latin distringere (“‘to pull asunder, strech out’”) < dis- (“‘apart’”) + stringere (“‘to draw tight, strain’”).

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: /dɪˈstɹɛs/, SAMPA: /dI"strEs/
•  Audio (US)^{help, file}
• Rhymes: -ɛs

[edit] Noun

distress (uncountable)

1. (Cause of) discomfort.
2. Serious danger.

   Three ships were in distress that night.

3. (law) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.

[edit] Related terms

• distrain
• district

[edit] Translations

[edit] Verb

to distress (third-person singular simple present distresses, present participle distressing, simple past and past participle distressed)

1. To cause strain or anxiety to someone.
2. (law) To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.
   • 1894, James Kent, William Hardcastle Browne, Commentaries on American Law, page 645:

     This power of distress, as anciently used, became as oppressive as the feudal forfeiture. It was as hard for the tenant to be stripped in an instant of all his goods, for arrears of rent, as to be turned out of the possession of his farm.

3. To treat an object, such as an antique, to give it an appearance of age.

   She distressed the new media cabinet so that it fit with the other furniture in the room.

[edit] Translations

[edit] External links

• distress in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• distress in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• distress at OneLook® Dictionary Search