stress testnoun [ C ]
specializedmedical a test designed to show whether someone's heart works well when exercising hard:
He went to the emergency room, where a checkup and stress test were performed.
engineering a process intended to test whether a building, product, material, etc. is damaged by particular forces:
Building materials are given a rigorous earthquake stress test on a quake simulator.
finance & economics a process intended to test whether a bank or similar organization can deal successfully with a financial crisis:
Several banks failed Friday's stress test.
stress testverb [ T ]
also stress-testto perform a stress test on something:
The lab is certified to stress-test voting machines.
Banks were stress tested and are now overcapitalized to allow for defaults.