distress

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”).

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈstɹɛs/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛs

distress (countable and uncountable, plural distresses)

1. (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.
2. Serious danger.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, chapter 13, in Robinson Crusoe‎:

     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.

   • 1759, Voltaire, chapter 42, in Candide‎:

     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.

   • For more examples of usage of this term, see Citations:distress.
3. (law) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.
4. (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.

• distress signal

• distrain
• district

distress (third-person singular simple present distresses, present participle distressing, simple past and past participle distressed)

1. To cause strain or anxiety to someone.

   Synonyms: anguish, harrow, trouble, vex, torment, tantalize, tantalise, martyr

   • 1827, Stendhal, chapter 31, in Armance‎:

     She respects me, no doubt, but has no longer any passionate feeling for me, and my death will distress her without plunging her in despair.

2. (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.

3. To treat a new object to give it an appearance of age.

   Synonyms: age, antique, patinate

   a pair of distressed jeans

   She distressed the new media cabinet so that it fit with the other furniture in the room.

• 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

• disserts