misery
pronunciation
How to pronounce misery in British English:
UK [ˈmɪzəri]
How to pronounce misery in American English:
US [ˈmɪzəri]
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- Noun:
- a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune
- a feeling of intense unhappiness
Word Origin
- misery
- misery: [14] Latin miser meant ‘miserable, wretched’. From it were derived miseria ‘wretchedness’, source of English misery, and miserābilis ‘pitiable’, source of English miserable [16]. Fitting in with the general semantic pattern, English miser [16] (a direct nominalization of the Latin adjective) originally meant ‘wretched person’. But people who hoarded money were evidently viewed as being basically unhappy, and so right from the beginning miser was used for an ‘avaricious person’.=> miser
- misery (n.)
- late 14c., "condition of external unhappiness," from Old French misere "miserable situation, misfortune, distress" (12c.), from Latin miseria "wretchedness," from miser (see miser). Meaning "condition of one in great sorrow or mental distress" is from 1530s. Meaning "bodily pain" is 1825, American English.
Antonym
Example
- 1. But mary 's parents seem almost oblivious to misery .
- 2. Somalia 's misery also threatens the outside world .
- 3. Ralphie 's life is made a misery by that danger .
- 4. Covert cross-border trade also helped alleviate some misery .
- 5. Self-examination is the only path out of misery .