Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Very uncomfortable or unhappy; wretched.
- adj. Causing or accompanied by great discomfort or distress: a miserable climate.
- adj. Mean or shameful; contemptible: a miserable trick.
- adj. Wretchedly inadequate: lived in a miserable shack; fed the prisoners miserable rations.
- adj. Of poor quality; inferior: miserable handicraft.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Unhappy; wretched; hapless.
- Causing or attended by suffering or unhappiness; distressing; doleful: as, a miserable lot or condition; miserable weather.
- Manifesting misery; indicative of want or suffering; shocking; pitiable: as, a miserable hut; to be covered with miserable rags; miserable looks.
- Of wretched character or quality; without value or merit; very poor; mean; worthless: as, a miserable soil; a miserable performer or performance; a miserable subterfuge.
- Covetous; miserly; niggardly.
- Compassionate; merciful; commiserating.
- Synonyms Distressed, forlorn, disconsolate, afflicted, pitiable. See affliction.
- n. An unfortunate, unhappy creature; a wretch.
Wiktionary
- adj. In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
- adj. Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Very unhappy; wretched; living in misery.
- adj. Causing unhappiness or misery.
- adj. Worthless; mean; despicable.
- adj. obsolete Avaricious; niggardly; miserly.
- n. obsolete A miserable person.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of the most contemptible kind
- adj. deserving or inciting pity
- adj. contemptibly small in amount
- adj. characterized by physical misery
- adj. very unhappy; full of misery
- adj. of very poor quality or condition
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French, from Latin miserābilis, pitiable, from miserārī, to pity, from miser, wretched. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“As for Ester, she prayed, in her clothes-press, thankfully for Dr. Douglass, more hopefully for Sadie, and knew not that a corner of the poor little letter which had slipped from Julia's hand and floated down the stream one summer morning, thereby causing her such a miserable, _miserable_ day, was lying at that moment in Dr. Douglass 'note-book, counted as the most precious of all his precious bits of paper.”
“I know, 'cried Eugénie de Netteville at last, standing at bay before him, her hands locked before her, her white lips quivering, when her cup of shame was full, and her one impulse left was to strike the man who had humiliated her --' I know that you and your puritanical wife are miserable -- _miserable_.”
“I know, 'cried Eugénie de Netteville at last, standing at bay before him, her hands locked before her, her white lips quivering, when her cup of shame was full, and her one impulse left was to strike the man who had humiliated her-'I know that you and your puritanical wife are miserable -- _miserable_.”
“I'm perfectly _miserable_!' he concluded, with a strong emphasis on the 'miserable.”
“_miserable pride_, very absurdly, for disdaine or disdained things cannot be said darke, but rather bright and cleere, because they be beholden and much looked vpon, and pride is rather enuied then pitied or miserable, vnlessse it be in Christian charitie, which helpeth not the terme in this case.”
“The term "miserable little compromise" was correctly directed at Gordon Brown's pitiful and insincere offers of minimal policy cooperation in order to resuscitate his dying government.”
“At one point during George W. Bush's presidency, a search for the word "miserable failure" called up his official White House biography as the first result.”
“BONN - Chancellor Helmut Kohl has laid part of the blame for what he called the miserable showing of his Christian Democrats (CDU) in weekend local elections on his ruling three-party coalition.”
“She had occasionally given him a five-dollar bill to eke out what he termed his miserable pay, and now whenever he called he didn't spare hints that he was out of pocket, and that a further gift would be acceptable.”
“Somerset administered two drams, one after the other, to the man with the chin-beard; who then, somewhat restored, began to confound himself in apologies for what he called his miserable nervousness, the result, he said, of a long course of dumb ague; and having taken leave with a hand that still sweated and trembled, he gingerly resumed his burthen and departed.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘miserable’.
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Sorrow is better than laughter; for b...
lachrymose, sorrow, melancholic, wail, mournful, sob, misery, wretchedness, anguish, agony, heartbreak, lament and 38 more...
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emo words
feelings...blah, blah, blah, feelings...
forsaken, anguish, angst, sorrowful, dejected, depressed, disconsolate, heartbroken, genial, chipper, inadequate, helpless and 58 more...
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the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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diioxyde's Words
macabre, egypt, egyptology, queen, love, sex, sister, lover, web, cobweb, line, circle and 223 more...
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candy cane heroin
sex, sexual, branden, rozz, candy cane, candy canes, cotton candy, may day, may, taurus, heroin, love and 134 more...
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Miss Sunshine
she's such a joy.
bereaved, bitter, cheerless, dejected, depressed, despairing, despondent, disconsolate, dismal, distressed, doleful, downcast and 405 more...
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Apples to Apples: Green Cards
A complete list of the green cards (adjectives) from the popular word game.
absurd, addictive, adorable, aged, American, ancient, animated, annoying, appetizing, arrogant, awesome, awkward and 237 more...
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classic695's Words
delighted, elated, energetic, excited, enthusiastic, elevated, happy, contented, fine, pleased, satisfied, compassionate and 168 more...
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feeling words
twitterpated, loquacious, ambiguous, pensive, sluggish, anxious, adventurous, curious, abandoned, absent-minded, abrasive, abused and 653 more...
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Reading Random
Got unknown words randomly
delinquency, modicum, dissuade, incendiary, destitute, lachrymose, plight, ruse, empirical, pedantic, demography, giggle and 444 more...
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favorite words
ennui, bonhomie, eschew, liaison, serendipity, lovely, dusk, kitten, epitome, sexy, beloved, darling and 396 more...
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SAT
abandon,extreme e..., abash,to humiliate, abate,to lessen, abbreviate,to sho..., abridge, abdicate,to forma..., aberration,depart..., abnormality, abet,to encourage, abhor,to hate, abide,to follow o..., abject,utterly ho... and 2228 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2008 more...
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Nullologue
nullologue, vaudeville, debauchery, debauched, libertine, nothing, dhadak, tz pf, nothingology, goodbyeology, sharmuta, manifesto and 866 more...
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Setting the Scene: Dark and Dreary
Words that lend to the dark and dreary atmosphere of gothic literature.
dark, dreary, shroud, shrouded, veiled, skeleton, skeletal, dead, death, murky, gloomy, lugubrious and 274 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for miserable.

bilby "Mostly I've not been quite so miserable since last year's holiday, but things are looking up here in D."
- Colin Dexter, 'The Way Through The Woods'. Nov 1, 2008