Weary vs Distress - What's the difference?

weary | distress | Related terms |

Weary is a related term of distress.

As verbs the difference between weary and distress

is that weary is to make or to become weary while distress is to cause strain or anxiety to someone.

As an adjective weary

is having the strength exhausted by toil or exertion; tired; fatigued.

As a noun distress is

(cause of) discomfort.

weary

English

Adjective

(er)

Having the strength exhausted by toil or exertion; tired; fatigued.

*1623 , (William Shakespeare), (As You Like It) , :

*:I care not for my spirits if my legs were not weary .

*(Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) (1807-1882)

*:[I] am weary , thinking of your task.

*:There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

Having one's patience, relish, or contentment exhausted; tired; sick.

Expressive of fatigue.

Causing weariness; tiresome.

*(Edmund Spenser) (c.1552–1599)

*:weary way

*(Samuel Taylor Coleridge) (1772-1834)

*:There passed a weary time.

Synonyms

* See also

Derived terms

* wearily * weariness * wearisome

Verb

(en-verb)

To make or to become weary.

* Shakespeare (Julius Caesar )

So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers,

* Milton

I would not cease / To weary him with my assiduous cries.

* 1898 , , (Moonfleet) Chapter 4

Yet there was no time to be lost if I was ever to get out alive, and so I groped with my hands against the side of the grave until I made out the bottom edge of the slab, and then fell to grubbing beneath it with my fingers. But the earth, which the day before had looked light and loamy to the eye, was stiff and hard enough when one came to tackle it with naked hands, and in an hour's time I had done little more than further weary myself and bruise my fingers.

Synonyms

* See also

Derived terms

* (l)

distress

English

Noun

(-)

(Cause of) discomfort.

* {{quote-book

, year=1833 , author=John Trusler , title=The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings , chapter=8 citation , passage=To heighten his distress , he is approached by his wife, and bitterly upbraided for his perfidy in concealing from her his former connexions (with that unhappy girl who is here present with her child, the innocent offspring of her amours, fainting at the sight of his misfortunes, being unable to relieve him farther), and plunging her into those difficulties she never shall be able to surmount.}}

Serious danger.

* {{quote-book

, year=1719 , author=Daniel Defoe , title=Robinson Crusoe , chapter=13 citation , passage=I immediately considered that this must be some ship in distress , and that they had some comrade, or some other ship in company, and fired these gun for signals of distress, and to obtain help.}}

* {{quote-book

, year=1759 , author=Voltaire , title=Candide , chapter=42 citation , passage=At length they perceived a little cottage; two persons in the decline of life dwelt in this desert, who were always ready to give every assistance in their power to their fellow-creatures in distress .}}

(legal) A seizing of property without legal process to force payment of a debt.

(legal) The thing taken by distraining; that which is seized to procure satisfaction.

* Spenser

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

* Blackstone

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

Verb

(es)

To cause strain or anxiety to someone.

* {{quote-book

, year=1827 , author=Stendhal , title=Armance , chapter=31 citation , passage=She respects me, no doubt, but has no longer any passionate feeling for me, and my death will distress her without plunging her in despair.}}

(legal) To retain someone’s property against the payment of a debt; to distrain.

To treat an object, such as an antique, to give it an appearance of age.

She distressed the new media cabinet so that it fit with the other furniture in the room.

External links

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