STRESS • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Stress

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/strɛs/ Listen

noun

Stress n.

1.

Distress. (Obs.) "Sad hersal of his heavy stress."

2.

Pressure, strain; used chiefly of immaterial things; except in mechanics; hence, urgency; importance; weight; significance. "The faculties of the mind are improved by exercise, yet they must not be put to a stress beyond their strength." "A body may as well lay too little as too much stress upon a dream."

3.

(Mech. & Physics) The force, or combination of forces, which produces a strain; force exerted in any direction or manner between contiguous bodies, or parts of bodies, and taking specific names according to its direction, or mode of action, as thrust or pressure, pull or tension, shear or tangential stress. "Stress is the mutual action between portions of matter."

4.

(Pron.) Force of utterance expended upon words or syllables. Stress is in English the chief element in accent and is one of the most important in emphasis.

5.

(Scots Law) Distress; the act of distraining; also, the thing distrained.

Stress of voice, unusual exertion of the voice.

Stress of weather, constraint imposed by continued bad weather; as, to be driven back to port by stress of weather.

To lay stress upon, to attach great importance to; to emphasize. "Consider how great a stress is laid upon this duty."

To put stress upon, or To put to a stress, to strain.

verb

Stress v. t.

1.

To press; to urge; to distress; to put to difficulties. (R.)

2.

To subject to stress, pressure, or strain.

3.

To subject to phonetic stress; to accent.

4.

To place emphasis on; to make emphatic; emphasize.

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Etymology of 'Stress'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Stress" Quotes from Famous Books

... Tribes and Castes of Bengal Sir Herbert Risley laid stress on the racial basis of caste, showing that difference of race and difference of colour were the foundation of the Indian caste system or division of the people into endogamous units. There seems reason to suppose that the contact of the Aryans with the indigenous people of India ...

— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India--Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... ornate of Man, And I think it won't come back till we restore the Pterodactyl, or revive the late Queen Anne: We have grown in mental stature, and we Go Direct to Nature, in these days of stress and strife, And the hero of a novel in a palace or a hovel is ...

— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... Perkin's Proclamation. because Mr. Hume lays great stress upon it, and insists, that if Perkin affirmed that his brother was killed, it must have been true, if he was true Duke of York. Mr. Hume would have persuaded me that the Proclamation is in Stowe, but I can find no such thing there; nor, what is more, in Casley's Catalogue, ...

— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... our hope rests on no distant, shining star, but lies about us as an atmosphere, unseen yet near, is the belief of many. The veil of material life shades earthly eyes, they say, from the glories in which we ever are. But sometimes when the veil wears thin in mortal stress, or is caught away by a rushing, mighty wind of inspiration, the trembling human soul, so bared, so purified, may look down unimagined heavenly vistas, and messengers may steal across the shifting boundary, breathing hope and the air of a brighter world. And of him who speaks his ...

— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)

... Wildenai sought first her father standing surprised but unafraid in the doorway of his lodge. Tall and spare and stern he looked, straight as some lonely pine on the slopes of distant San Jacinto. Yet even in the stress of such a moment a tender light stole into his eyes as they rested upon his ...

— Their Mariposa Legend • Charlotte Herr

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