misery

Borrowed from Old French miserie (modern: misère), from Latin miseria, from miser.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹɪ/
• (General American) enPR: mĭzʹə-rē, mĭzʹrē, IPA^(key): /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹi/

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• Hyphenation: mis‧ery

misery (countable and uncountable, plural miseries)

1. Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe.

   Ever since his wife left him you can see the misery on his face.

   • 2008, Charlotte Bingham, The Land of Summer‎:

     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.

   • 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, London: Imprinted for VVilliam Ponsonbie, dwelling in Paules Churchyard at the signe of the Bishops head, published 1591, OCLC 84758486:

     For miſerie doth braueſt mindes abate, / And make them ſeeke for that they wont to ſcorne, / Of fortune and of hope at once forlorne.

2. (US and Britain, dialectal) A bodily ache or 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.

3. Cause of misery; calamity; misfortune.
4. (Extreme) poverty.
5. (archaic) greed; avarice.

• see Thesaurus:greed

• put out of one's misery

• commiserate
• miser
• miserable

• Myries