Misery

How to spell misery

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce misery

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does misery mean?

1. nounA state of great unhappiness, suffering, or discomfort.

Misery in a sentence

• The long delay at the airport turned the trip into pure misery.

• Living with chronic back pain caused her constant misery.

Where does misery come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin miseria, meaning 'wretchedness' or 'distress', which was built on the adjective miser, literally 'wretched, pitiable, unfortunate'. English picked it up in the 1300s through Old French miserie, keeping both the spelling pattern and the sense of deep unhappiness or hardship. The same Latin miser sits behind a whole family of English words: the pleading 'miserable', the act of 'commiserate' (to share in someone's wretchedness), and even 'miser', the hoarder so wretchedly attached to money. The middle of the word is the spelling trap, since the unstressed 'er' is easy to slur and the single 's' is sometimes doubled by mistake. Remembering the bare root miser, with one 's', helps fix the correct form.

How the word is built

• miser- (from Latin miser: wretched, unhappy)
• -y (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or condition)