different between aggravation vs distress

English

Etymology

From Middle French aggravation.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

aggravation (countable and uncountable, plural aggravations)

1. The act of aggravating, or making worse; used of evils, natural or moral; the act of increasing in severity or heinousness; something additional to a crime or wrong and enhancing its guilt or injurious consequences.

   Synonym: exacerbation

   • 1826, Mary Shelley, The Last Man, part 1, chapter 10

     Adrian, whose health had always been weak, now suffered considerable aggravation of suffering from the effects of his wound.

2. Exaggerated representation.
3. An extrinsic circumstance or accident which increases the guilt of a crime or the misery of a calamity.
4. (informal) Provocation, irritation, annoyance.

Related terms

• aggravate

Translations

Further reading

• “aggravation”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.
• aggravation in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• aggravation in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Pronunciation

Noun

aggravation f (plural aggravations)

1. aggravation

Further reading

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

English

Etymology

The verb is from Middle English distressen, from Old French destrecier (“to restrain, constrain, put in straits, afflict, distress”); compare French détresse. Ultimately from Medieval Latin as if *districtiare, an assumed frequentative form of Latin distringere (“to pull asunder, stretch out”), from dis- (“apart”) + stringere (“to draw tight, strain”).

The noun is from Middle English distresse, from Old French destrece, ultimately also from Latin distringere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??st??s/
• Rhymes: -?s

Noun

distress (countable and uncountable, plural distresses)

1. (Cause of) discomfort.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:distress.
2. Serious danger.
   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:distress.
3. (medicine) An aversive state of stress to which a person cannot fully adapt.
4. (law) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.
5. (law) The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.

   • If he were not paid, he would straight go and take a distress of goods and cattle.

   • The distress thus taken must be proportioned to the thing distrained for.

Derived terms

• distress signal

Antonyms

• (maladaptive stress): eustress

Related terms

• distrain
• district

Translations

Verb

distress (third-person singular simple present distresses, present participle distressing, simple past and past participle distressed)

1. To cause strain or anxiety to someone.

   Synonyms: anguish, harrow, trouble, vex, torment, tantalize, tantalise, martyr
2. (law) To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.

   Synonym: distrain
3. To treat a new object to give it an appearance of age.

   Synonyms: age, antique, patinate

Translations

Further reading

• distress in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• distress in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• distress at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• disserts