stressed

1. 1
   adjective

   Feeling the effects of physical or mental strain, tension, or pressure.

   Like a bridge carrying more weight than it was ever built to hold.

   After months of caring for two sick relatives, she was constantly stressed.

   Workers reported feeling stressed by the impossible deadlines management kept setting.

   Similartense, anxious, frazzled, strained, overwrought

   Oppositerelaxed, calm, carefree, laid-back

   Note

   A participle that has settled into a true adjective, which is why it grades: more stressed, most stressed and very stressed all sound natural. The strain need not be emotional. Physical stress counts too, so a stressed beam or stressed crops fit the sense as comfortably as a stressed worker does.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of stress.

   The coach stressed teamwork over individual talent throughout the season.

   The report stressed the need for cleaner drinking water in rural areas.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty: it is the simple past (she stressed the point twice) and the participle after have or be (the point was stressed). It carries the verb's whole range: straining a structure or a person, emphasizing a syllable or an argument, and, informally and with no object, simply worrying. After be, the passive can blur into the adjective for feeling strain, so was stressed by deadlines reads either way.

3. 3
   adjective

   Pronounced with greater emphasis or vocal force than the neighboring syllables in a word.

   Like the strong beat in a bar of music that the ear naturally lands on.

   In 'record' used as a noun, the first syllable is stressed.

   Poets often place their most important words on stressed beats.

   Similaraccented, emphasized, strong

   Oppositeunstressed, unaccented, weak

   Note

   In phonology the prominence comes from length, loudness and pitch movement working together. A long word can carry more than one degree of it, with primary stress on one syllable and secondary stress on another. Its partner term is unstressed, and in verse the same contrast drives meter, where stressed and unstressed syllables alternate in set patterns.

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