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Stress

//stɹɛs// noun, verb, slang

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    the relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch) wordnet
  3. 3
    Aggression toward an organism resulting in a response in an attempt to restore previous conditions. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    (physics) force that produces strain on a physical body wordnet
  5. 5
    The internal distribution of force across a small boundary per unit area of that boundary (pressure) within a body. It causes strain or deformation and is typically symbolised by σ or τ. countable
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  1. 6
    (psychology) a state of mental or emotional strain or suspense wordnet
  2. 7
    Force externally applied to a body which cause internal stress within the body. countable
  3. 8
    difficulty that causes worry or emotional tension wordnet
  4. 9
    Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal. uncountable

    "Go easy on him, he's been under a lot of stress lately."

  5. 10
    special emphasis attached to something wordnet
  6. 11
    A suprasegmental feature of a language having additional attention raised to a sound, word or word group by means of of loudness, duration or pitch; phonological prominence. broadly, countable

    "Some people put the stress on the first syllable of “controversy”; others put it on the second."

  7. 12
    The suprasegmental feature of a language having additional attention raised to a sound by means of loudness and/or duration; phonological prominence phonetically achieved by means of dynamics as distinct from pitch. countable

    "The shift from pitch to stress appears to happen before the other obliques begin merging in the Proto-Italic, Proto-Germanic, Primitive Irish, and Middle Indo-Aryan. But further investigation into the timeline of sound changes […] shows that, at least in Germanic, the oblique and core noun stems sound quite unpredictably different in all these families by the time of the crucial accent shift from pitch to stress. […] once a language becomes stress-sensitive, there seems to be a strong tendency in early Indo-European languages to shift the stress to the first syllable. This change happens shortly after the change to stress accent in Proto-Germanic, Proto-Italic, and Proto-Celtic, and even Thessalian, with evidence from Dybo's Law and Verner's Law left behind to show that sound changes happened after the changes to stress accent."

  8. 13
    Emphasis placed on a particular point in an argument or discussion (whether spoken or written). uncountable
  9. 14
    Obsolete form of distress. alt-of, countable, obsolete, uncountable

    "With this sad Hersal of his heavy stress, The warlike Damzel was empassion's sore, And said; Sir Knight, your Cause is nothing less Than is your Sorrow , certes if not more"

  10. 15
    distress; the act of distraining; also, the thing distrained. countable, uncountable
Verb
  1. 1
    To apply force to (a body or structure) causing strain. transitive
  2. 2
    to suffer from stress wordnet
  3. 3
    To apply emotional pressure to (a person or animal). transitive
  4. 4
    put stress on; utter with an accent wordnet
  5. 5
    To suffer stress; to worry or be agitated. informal, intransitive
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  1. 6
    to stress, single out as important wordnet
  2. 7
    To emphasise (a syllable of a word). transitive

    "“Emphasis” is stressed on the first syllable, but “emphatic” is stressed on the second."

  3. 8
    test the limits of wordnet
  4. 9
    To emphasise (words in speaking). transitive
  5. 10
    To emphasise (a point) in an argument or discussion. transitive

    "I must stress that this information is given in strict confidence."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From a shortening of Middle English destresse, borrowed from Old French destrecier, from Latin distringō (“to stretch out”). This form probably coalesced with Middle English stresse, from Old French estrece (“narrowness”), from Vulgar Latin *strictia, from Latin strictus (“narrow”). In the sense of "mental strain" or “disruption”, used occasionally in the 1920s and 1930s by psychologists, including Walter Cannon (1934); in “biological threat”, used by endocrinologist Hans Selye, by metaphor with stress in physics (force on an object) in the 1930s, and popularized by same in the 1950s.

Etymology 2

From a shortening of Middle English destresse, borrowed from Old French destrecier, from Latin distringō (“to stretch out”). This form probably coalesced with Middle English stresse, from Old French estrece (“narrowness”), from Vulgar Latin *strictia, from Latin strictus (“narrow”). In the sense of "mental strain" or “disruption”, used occasionally in the 1920s and 1930s by psychologists, including Walter Cannon (1934); in “biological threat”, used by endocrinologist Hans Selye, by metaphor with stress in physics (force on an object) in the 1930s, and popularized by same in the 1950s.

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