MISERY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does misery mean? 

• MISERY (noun)
  The noun MISERY has 2 senses:

1. a state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune

2. a feeling of intense unhappiness

  Familiarity information: MISERY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MISERY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A state of ill-being due to affliction or misfortune

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

miserableness; misery; wretchedness

Context example:

the misery and wretchedness of those slums is intolerable

Hypernyms ("misery" is a kind of...):

ill-being (lack of prosperity or happiness or health)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "misery"):

concentration camp (a situation characterized by crowding and extremely harsh conditions)

living death (a state of constant misery)

suffering; woe (misery resulting from affliction)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A feeling of intense unhappiness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Context example:

she was exhausted by her misery and grief

Hypernyms ("misery" is a kind of...):

sadness; unhappiness (emotions experienced when not in a state of well-being)

 Context examples 

She was deep in the happiness of such misery, or the misery of such happiness, instantly.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

In this time of misery, White Fang, too, stole away into the woods.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

What can exceed the misery of such a mind in such a situation?

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

It is what we happily have never known any thing of; but it must be a life of misery.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

And then came this last week and all the misery and ruin.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Had I died,—in what peculiar misery should I have left you, my nurse, my friend, my sister!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Happiness or misery was now the question.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

And she was so pitiless that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief and misery.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Miserable as he was on the steamer, a new misery came upon him.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)