Noun: distress
| Singular | distress |
| Plural | distresses |
Sample Sentences
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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. [1833, John Trusler, chapter 8, in The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2011:]
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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. [1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 122:]
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I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress, and that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these gun for signals of distress, and to obtain help. [1719, Daniel Defoe, chapter 13, in Robinson Crusoe, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2012:]
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At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always ready to give every assistance in their power to their fellow-creatures in distress. [1759, Voltaire, chapter 42, in Candide, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2011:]
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If he were not paid, he would straight go and take a distress of goods and cattle. [1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:]
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The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for. [1765–1769, William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, (please specify |book=I to IV), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Clarendon Press, →OCLC:]
Nouns inflected like distress
penniless-bench,
wintergrass,
kitchen pass,
grey fox,
grey box,
trailer hitch,
paleness,
loaded march,
Tush Push,
horribleness,
slaughteress,
chapparvovirus,
greenwax,
royal flush,
crab cactus,
geostress,
syngas,
wintercress,
ichthys,
ichthus, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. The verb is from Middle English distressen, from Old French destrecier (“to restrain, constrain, put in straits, afflict, distress”); compare French détresse. Ultimately from Medieval Latin as if *districtiō, an assumed frequentative form of Latin distringō (“to pull asunder, stretch out”), from dis- (“apart”) + stringō (“to draw tight, strain”).
2. The noun is from Middle English distresse, from Old French destrece, ultimately also from Latin distringō. See: French Nouns '
détresse', Latin Nouns '
distringō', Middle English Nouns '
distresse', Latin Nouns '
distringō'.