adj, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   present participle and gerund of distress form-of, gerund, participle, present

Adjective

1. 1
   Causing distress; upsetting; distressful.

   "The details of the ordeal can be distressing to some readers."

Adjective

1. 1
   bad; unfortunate wordnet
2. 2
   causing distress or worry or anxiety wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

distressfulgrievoushurtfulpainfultroublesomeacute

Example

More examples

"Tom had a job as a roadkill picker-upper and he found it very distressing."

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.