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stress

Pronunciation: /ˈstɹɛs/

The English word “stress” has 15 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism.
  2. Aggression toward an organism resulting in a response in an attempt to restore previous conditions.
  3. 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.
  4. Force externally applied to a body which cause internal stress within the body.
  5. Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. Emphasis placed on a particular point in an argument or discussion (whether spoken or written).
  9. distress; the act of distraining; also, the thing distrained.

verb

  1. To apply force to (a body or structure) causing strain.
  2. To apply emotional pressure to (a person or animal).
  3. To suffer stress; to worry or be agitated.
  4. To emphasise (a syllable of a word).
  5. To emphasise (words in speaking).
  6. To emphasise (a point) in an argument or discussion.

Etymology

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”). Displaced native Old English swēġ (“accent, stress”), though strictly in the grammatical sense. In the sense of…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.