misery
Appearance
See also: Misery
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English miserie, from Old French miserie (modern: misère), from Latin miseria, from miser, equivalent to miser + -y. Doublet of misère.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹɪ/
- (General American) enPR: mĭzʹə-rē, mĭzʹrē, IPA(key): /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹi/
Audio (US): (file) - Hyphenation: mis‧ery
Noun
[edit]misery (countable and uncountable, plural miseries)
- Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe.
- Synonyms: dejection, grief, sorrow; see also Thesaurus:sadness
- Ever since his wife left him you can see the misery on his face.
- 1578–1579, Edmund Spenser, “Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale. [...] Dedicated to the Right Honorable the Ladie Compton and Mountegle”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. Whereof the Next Page Maketh Mention[1], London: Imprinted for VVilliam Ponsonbie, dwelling in Paules Churchyard at the signe of the Bishops head, published 1591, →OCLC:
- For miſerie doth braueſt mindes abate, / And make them ſeeke for that they wont to ſcorne, / Of fortune and of hope at once forlorne.
- 2008, Charlotte Bingham, The Land of Summer[2]:
- It was not just the confusion that unhappiness brings, it was not just the loneliness, it was the despair that accompanies all those emotions that turns unhappiness into utter misery.
- 2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:
- Then, in January, a creeping tsunami of train cancellations, triggered by major staff absences as a result of the aggressive transmissibility of Omicron, heaped further misery on rail users.
- (US and UK, dialects) A bodily ache or pain.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:pain
- 1868, John Vestal Hadley, Seven Months a Prisoner, page 15:
- [...] and I had a misery in my left breast and shoulder. I was hurt, but knew not how or how much.
- Cause of misery; calamity; misfortune.
- Synonyms: adversity, woe; see also Thesaurus:woe
- (Extreme) poverty.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:poverty
- 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], Act I:
- The Widdow that hath but a pan of braſſe, […]
Muſt pay her Landlord many a groat,
Or twil be puld out of her throat: […]
The rich haue all, the poore liue in miſerie: […]
- (archaic) greed; avarice.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:greed
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]great unhappiness
|
cause of misery, misfortune
poverty — see also poverty
|
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English terms suffixed with -y
- English doublets
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with usage examples
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- American English
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- English dialectal terms
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- English 2-syllable words
- en:Emotions
- en:Sadness