Unhappiness

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The feeling of not being happy. countable, uncountable

    "While there may be some truth in the Anna Karenina principle that all happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, we increasingly have a better understanding of what makes for unhappiness and stress in the workplace."

  2. 2
    emotions experienced when not in a state of well-being wordnet
  3. 3
    state characterized by emotions ranging from mild discontentment to deep grief wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
dejectionsadnesswoedesolationadversityangst

Example

More examples

"War necessarily causes unhappiness."

Etymology

From unhappy + -ness or un- + happiness.

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