stress

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Worry or mental pressure caused by a difficult situation.

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

2. 2
   noun

   Special importance or emphasis given to something.

   The teacher put great stress on the need for daily practice.

3. 3
   noun

   The extra force placed on a syllable or word when speaking.

   In the word 'controversy', the stress falls on the first syllable.

4. 4
   noun

   A physical force that pushes or pulls on an object.

   The bridge was tested for the stress it could bear.

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”). 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.

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