Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Causing or experiencing distress.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Inflicting or bringing distress; distressing; calamitous: as, a distressful event.
- Indicating distress; proceeding from pain or anguish: as, distressful cries.
- Attended with poverty or misery; gained by severe or painful toil.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Full of distress; causing, indicating, or attended with, distress.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. causing distress or worry or anxiety
Examples
“No, no," he exclaimed in distressful tones, "I cannot have that, but you must leave us.”
“The reformation of abuses and the relief of misery were the great purposes which quickened his every thought, and strained every nerve; and the tear of sensibility started in his eyes on recalling the distressful scenes to which he had been witness, and the spirit of indignation flashed from them at the recollection of baseness and oppression.”
"The Life and Character of John Howard," Senior Speech of Richard T. Weaver, April 1846
“Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe Wednesday called for solutions to the "distressful" problems of food shortages within the country, state television reported.”
“By mistake the "distressful" orator had put one ten-pound note into his parcel!”
“If you find my use of a blog name 'distressful', then you're just too easily distressed.”
“Maternity, or additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future.”
Simon & Schuster: The Conservative Assault on the Constitution
“It is not only distressful but it is also panic inducing.”
“After Edwards and Peterson launched a full-fledged rebuilding project in 2008, youth and injury led to a 2-14 record and a distressful two-year tally of 6-26 that cost both men their jobs.”
“All this is not to minimize the awful reality of trauma, which by definition is an experience that is emotionally painful, distressful, and shocking and which may result in lasting mental and physical effects.”
The Huffington Post: Judith Simon Prager, PhD: Minimizing the Effects of Trauma
“At the same time, it's distressful because there are so many labels that are out of work.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘distressful’.
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7756 more...
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Doleful, Woeful, Sad or Unhappy
Words meaning doleful, woeful, sad or unhappy
lamentable, lugubrious, elenge, dolesome, dolent, disconsolate, distressful, infelicitous
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