Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Keep "distressful" when the sentence already sounds natural, when a synonym would add unintended emphasis, or when readers need the most familiar wording. A synonym should clarify or sharpen the message, not simply make the sentence look more varied.
If two options seem close, choose the one that best matches the audience and purpose of the sentence.
Choose a synonym only if it keeps the core idea of "distressful" intact in the sentence you are editing.
Check whether the replacement sounds more formal, casual, emotional, technical, or forceful than the original word.
Read the full sentence after the swap. Keep the synonym only when the sentence becomes clearer or more precise.
Review note: Synonym lists are ranked with lexical data and reviewed for practical writing value. Use the comparison notes, sentence evidence, and source labels together; a high-ranking synonym can still be wrong when the audience, register, or grammar changes.
After choosing a replacement for "distressful", read the sentence once for meaning and once for rhythm. The best synonym should feel natural in the full sentence, not only accurate in a word list.
If the synonym makes the sentence slower, vaguer, or more dramatic than intended, keep "distressful" or choose a simpler alternative from the closest-match group.
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
4 total sentences available.
Between the minded planetary systems occurred infinite variations of personal intercourse. As between human individuals, there were loves and hates, temperamental sympathies and antipathies, joyful and distressful intimacies, cooperations and thwartings in personal ventures and in the great common venture of building the galactic Utopia.
Source: tatoeba (10605262)
There, vvhile above the giddy tempeſt flies, / And all around diſtreſsful yells ariſe, / The penſive exile, bending vvith his vvoe, / To ſtop too fearful, and too faint to go.
Source: wiktionary
Once more, that fulness of prophetic joy, / With which this unborn Jubilee he mark'd / Through the long vista of distressful years, / While the dark war-clouds gathering at his feet / Involved the scene.
Source: wiktionary
If I'm never successful, / It won't be distressful, / 'Cos I don't care.
Source: wiktionary
Closest matches include distressing, perturbing, troubling, affecting, agonizing.
Compare the replacement against real sentence context. This entry includes sample sentences so you can check tone, grammar, and meaning before swapping words.