mis·er·y

[miz-uh-ree]
noun, plural mis·er·ies.
1.
wretchedness of condition or circumstances.
2.
distress or suffering caused by need, privation, or poverty.
3.
great mental or emotional distress; extreme unhappiness.
4.
a cause or source of distress.
5.
Older Use.
a.
a pain: a misery in my left side.
c.
Often, miseries. a case or period of despondency or gloom.

Origin:
1325–75; Middle English miserie < Latin miseria, equivalent to miser wretched + -ia -y3


1. tribulation, trial, suffering. 3. grief, anguish, woe, torment, desolation. See sorrow.


3. happiness.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source Link To misery
00:10
Misery is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Collins
World English Dictionary
misery (ˈmɪzərɪ) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
n , pl -eries
1.  intense unhappiness, discomfort, or suffering; wretchedness
2.  a cause of such unhappiness, discomfort, etc
3.  squalid or poverty-stricken conditions
4.  informal (Brit) a person who is habitually depressed: he is such a misery
5.  dialect a pain or ailment
 
[C14: via Anglo-Norman from Latin miseria, from miser wretched]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

misery
late 14c., "condition of external unhappiness," from O.Fr. miserie (12c.), from L. miseria "wretchedness," from miser. Meaning "condition of one in great sorrow or mental distress" is from 1530s. Meaning "bodily pain" is 1825, Amer.Eng.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

misery

In addition to the idiom beginning with misery, also see put someone out of his or her misery.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Example sentences
And no other drug has been more precious for pain control, though sometimes at high cost in addiction and misery.
Food prices are causing misery and strife around the world.
Science, as it is practiced by callous zealots, consumes life in disregard of the misery it inflicts.
These pages are alive with pain, heavy with human misery.
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