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View synonyms for misery

misery

[ miz-uh-ree ]

noun

, plural mis·er·ies.
  1. wretchedness of condition or circumstances.

    Synonyms: trial, tribulation, suffering

  2. distress or suffering caused by need, privation, or poverty.
  3. great mental or emotional distress; extreme unhappiness.

    Synonyms: desolation, torment, woe, anguish, grief

    Antonyms: happiness

  4. a cause or source of distress.
  5. Older Use.
    1. a pain:

      a misery in my left side.

    2. Often miseries. a case or period of despondency or gloom.


misery

/ ˈmɪzərɪ /

noun

  1. intense unhappiness, discomfort, or suffering; wretchedness
  2. a cause of such unhappiness, discomfort, etc
  3. squalid or poverty-stricken conditions
  4. informal.
    a person who is habitually depressed

    he is such a misery

  5. dialect.
    a pain or ailment
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of misery1

First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English miserie, from Latin miseria, equivalent to miser “wretched” + -ia -y 3
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Word History and Origins

Origin of misery1

C14: via Anglo-Norman from Latin miseria, from miser wretched
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Idioms and Phrases

In addition to the idiom beginning with misery , also see put someone out of his or her misery .
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Synonym Study

See sorrow.
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Example Sentences

It took years of accumulated misery around mirrors to make me quit pie.

It was miserable, but the level of misery made it more memorable.

The trillion-dollar gap between actual GDP and potential GDP is a gap made up of misery, unemployment, and unfulfilled promise.

From Axios

His misery over the loss of his son, Eddy — a talented guitarist who overdosed on heroin — never subsided.

For others, an active infection may spell misery for months.

From Fortune

There are no moratoriums on the Internet, least of all for news of human misery.

Every possible outcome—them together, them staying with their existing partners—seems only likely to bring misery.

Has she been doomed by the science of 2014 to a life of sexual misery?

“I think religion in general is the source of most human misery,” he says.

It breaks up families, burns hope, and perpetuates cycles of misery.

In the year of misery, of agony and suffering in general he had endured, he had settled upon one theory.

From this one source of misery, where was a promise or a chance of a final rescue?

Consequently there is so universal misery that no words could exaggerate it to your Majesty.

The darkness, or rather the general misapprehension, which prevails on this subject, is a frightful source of disease and misery.

The years that followed the close of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 were in many senses years of unexampled misery.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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