distress

1. 1.

   bring into difficulties or distress, especially financial hardship

   Synonymsstraiten

   Broadertrouble
2. 2.

   cause mental pain to

   “The news of her child's illness distressed the mother”

   Broaderdisturb

   Narrowerbesiege

Other forms of distress

plural

distresses·

past tense

distressed·

present participle

distressing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about distress

What does distress mean?

distress means "psychological suffering". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in distress?

distress has 2 syllables: di-stress. The stress falls on "stress". In IPA it is /dɪˈstɹɛs/.

What is another word for distress?

Close synonyms include hurt, suffering, distraint, straiten. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is distress a common word?

distress is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with distress?

1 word rhymes with distress. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.