misery

From Middle English miserie, from Old French miserie (modern: misère), from Latin miseria, from miser, equivalent to miser +‎ -y. Doublet of misère.

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

• Audio (US):

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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.

   • 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^[1], London: Imprinted for VVilliam Ponsonbie, dwelling in Paules Churchyard at the signe of the Bishops head, published 1591, →OCLC:

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

   • 2008, Charlotte Bingham, The Land of Summer‎^[2]:

     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.

   • 2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:

     Then, in January, a creeping tsunami of train cancellations, triggered by major staff absences as a result of the aggressive transmissibility of Omicron, heaped further misery on rail users.

2. (US and UK, dialects) 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.
5. (Extreme) poverty.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:poverty

   • 1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], Act I:

     The Widdow that hath but a pan of braſſe, […]
     Muſt pay her Landlord many a groat,
     Or twil be puld out of her throat: […]
     The rich haue all, the poore liue in miſerie: […]

6. (archaic) greed; avarice.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:greed

• commiserate
• miser
• miserable

• Myries