misery
/ˈmɪz(ə)ri
/noun (plural miseries) [mass noun]
1A state or feeling of great physical or mental distress or discomfort: a man who had brought her nothing but misery the misery of the miner’s existence...
- This one revolves around a mental case wallowing in misery because her sister stole her boyfriend.
- This tale of physical misery, compelling as it is, is not the main focus of Young's play.
- The physical misery it causes has been compared to advanced cardiac disease or cancer.
Synonyms
unhappiness, distress, wretchedness, hardship, suffering, affliction, anguish, anxiety, angst, torment, torture, hell, agony, pain, discomfort, deprivation, poverty, grief, heartache, heartbreak, heartbrokenness, despair, despondency, dejection, depression, desolation, gloom, gloominess, low spirits, moroseness, doldrums, melancholy, melancholia, woe, sadness, sorrow
informal the dumps, the blues
literary dolour
1.1 [count noun] (usually miseries) A cause or source of great distress or discomfort: the miseries of war...
- The ‘patriarchal family’ was held to be the main source of children's miseries.
- As long as we live in this world, we are bound to suffer the miseries and afflictions that beset the human being.
- What is more, it is as simple as the solution which, after the Second World War, we applied to correct the economic and other miseries that had plagued us during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Synonyms
affliction, misfortune, difficulty, problem, adversity, ordeal, trouble, hardship, deprivation;
pain, sorrow, burden, load, blow, trial, tribulation, woe, torment, catastrophe, calamity, disaster, misadventure, mischance, accident, reverse, reverse of fortune, mishap
1.2 [count noun] British informal A person who is constantly miserable or discontented: have we really been such a bunch of miseries to work with?...
- They said she was a misery because she'd worked the Baby's Room for so long and so many of them died.
Synonyms
killjoy, dog in the manger, damper, dampener, spoilsport, pessimist, prophet of doom, complainer, moaner, mope
informal sourpuss, grouch, grump, wet blanket, party pooper, doom merchant
rare melancholiac
Phrases
make someone's life a misery (or make life a misery for someone)
put someone/thing out of their misery
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French miserie, from Latin miseria, from miser 'wretched'.
Misery comes via French from Latin miser ‘wretched’, which also gives us miser (Late Middle English).