distress
English
Etymology
From Middle English, from Old French destrecier (“to restrain, constrain, put in straits, afflict, distress”); compare Middle French détresse. Ultimately from Medieval Latin as if *districtiare, an assumed frequentative form of Latin distringere (“to pull asunder, stretch out”), from dis- (“apart”) + stringere (“to draw tight, strain”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /dɪˈstɹɛs/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɛs
Noun
distress (countable and uncountable, plural distresses)
- (Cause of) discomfort.
- 1833, John Trusler, chapter 8, in The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings:
- To heighten his distress, he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided for his perfidy in concealing from her his former connexions (with that unhappy girl who is here present with her child, the innocent offspring of her amours, fainting at the sight of his misfortunes, being unable to relieve him farther), and plunging her into those difficulties she never shall be able to surmount.
- 1967, Sleigh, Barbara, Jessamy, 1993 edition, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, →ISBN, page 122:
- At any other time Jessamy would have laughed at the expressions that chased each other over his freckled face: crossness left over from his struggle with the baby; incredulity; distress; and finally delight.
- For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:distress.
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- Serious danger.
- For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:distress.
- (law) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.
- (law) The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.
- Spenser
- If he were not paid, he would straight go and take a distress of goods and cattle.
- Blackstone
- The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for.
- Spenser
Derived terms
Translations
(cause of) discomfort
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serious danger
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(law) a seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Verb
distress (third-person singular simple present distresses, present participle distressing, simple past and past participle distressed)
- To cause strain or anxiety to someone.
- (law) To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.
- Synonym: 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.
- To treat a new object to give it an appearance of age.
Translations
cause strain or anxiety
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retain someone’s property
Further reading
- distress in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- distress in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
- distress at OneLook Dictionary Search
Anagrams
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