stress

Etymology

From Middle English destresse, borrowed from Old French [Term?], from Latin stringere (“to draw tight”).^[1]

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.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stɹɛs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛs

Noun

stress (countable and uncountable, plural stresses)

1. (biology) A physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism.
2. (biology) Aggression toward an organism resulting in a response in an attempt to restore previous conditions.
3. (countable, physics) 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. (countable, physics) Force externally applied to a body which cause internal stress within the body.
5. (uncountable) Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.

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

6. (uncountable, phonetics) The emphasis placed on a syllable of a word.

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

7. (uncountable) Emphasis placed on words in speaking.
8. (uncountable) Emphasis placed on a particular point in an argument or discussion (whether spoken or written).
9. Obsolete form of distress.
   • (Can we find and add a quotation of Spenser to this entry?)
10. (Scotland, law) distress; the act of distraining; also, the thing distrained.

Verb

stress (third-person singular simple present stresses, present participle stressing, simple past and past participle stressed)

1. To apply force to (a body or structure) causing strain.
2. To apply emotional pressure to (a person or animal).
3. (informal) To suffer stress; to worry or be agitated.
4. To emphasise (a syllable of a word).

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

5. To emphasise (words in speaking).
6. To emphasise (a point) in an argument or discussion.

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

Related terms

• strain
• strait
• strict
• stringent
• stringency

Etymology

Borrowed from English stress.

Noun

stress c, n (singular definite stressen or stresset, not used in plural)

1. stress

Etymology

Borrowed from English stress.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ɛs

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

stress m (uncountable)

1. stress

Etymology

Borrowed from English stress.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /stʁɛs/

Noun

stress m (uncountable)

1. stress (emotional pressure)

Further reading

• “stress” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Etymology

Borrowed from English stress.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /strɛsː/
• Rhymes: -ɛsː

Noun

stress n (genitive singular stress, no plural)

1. stress

Etymology

Borrowed from English stress.

Noun

stress m (invariable)

1. stress

Etymology

Borrowed from English stress.

Verb

stress

1. imperative of stresse

Noun

stress m (uncountable)

1. Alternative form of estresse

Etymology

Borrowed from English stress.

Noun

stress m (plural stresses)

1. stress

Synonyms

• estrés

Etymology

Borrowed from English stress.

Noun

stress c

1. stress

Declension