Stresses

How to spell stresses

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce stresses

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does stresses mean?

1. verbEmphasises something as important, or places physical or mental pressure on it.
2. nounThe various pressures, strains, or tensions experienced physically or mentally.

Stresses in a sentence

• verb

  The manual stresses the importance of backing up your files.

• noun

  The daily stresses of commuting left her exhausted by Friday.

• verb

  The coach always stresses the value of regular practice.

• noun

  Engineers measured the stresses acting on the bridge during rush hour.

Where does stresses come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb stringere, meaning 'to draw tight' or 'to bind', whose past participle was strictus (the same root behind 'strict' and 'strain'). From that came the Old French estresse, meaning 'narrowness' or 'oppression', and the closely related destresse, which English shortened into 'distress'. By the fourteenth century English had the noun 'stress' for hardship, force, or pressure, and over time it gained the technical sense of physical force on a material and the modern sense of mental strain. The form 'stresses' is simply the plural noun and the third-person singular verb, made by adding -es because the word already ends in the hissing -ss sound. Remembering that the singular keeps its double s explains why the plural lands on the slightly awkward triple-letter cluster 'ss' plus 'es'.

How the word is built

• stress (strain, pressure, from Latin strictus 'drawn tight')
• -es (plural noun / third-person singular verb suffix)