misery

Etymology

From Middle English miserie, from Old French miserie (modern: misère), from Latin miseria, from miser. Doublet of misère.

noun

1. Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe.
   Ever since his wife left him you can see the misery on his face.
   For miſerie doth braueſt mindes abate, / And make them ſeeke for that they wont to ſcorne, / Of fortune and of hope at once forlorne. 1578–1579, Edmund Spenser, “Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale. … Dedicated to the Right Honorable the Ladie Compton and Mountegle”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. Whereof the Next Page Maketh Mention, London: Imprinted for VVilliam Ponsonbie, dwelling in Paules Churchyard at the signe of the Bishops head, published 1591, →OCLC
   It was not just the confusion that unhappiness brings, it was not just the loneliness, it was the despair that accompanies all those emotions that turns unhappiness into utter misery. 2008, Charlotte Bingham, The Land of Summer
   Then, in January, a creeping tsunami of train cancellations, triggered by major staff absences as a result of the aggressive transmissibility of Omicron, heaped further misery on rail users. January 12 2022, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3
2. (US and UK, dialects) A bodily ache or pain.
   … and I had a misery in my left breast and shoulder. I was hurt, but knew not how or how much. 1868, John Vestal Hadley, Seven Months a Prisoner, page 15
3. Cause of misery; calamity; misfortune.
4. (Extreme) poverty.
5. (archaic) greed; avarice.