stress

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism.
2. (countable, uncountable)Aggression toward an organism resulting in a response in an attempt to restore previous conditions.
3. (countable)The internal distribution of force across a small boundary per unit area of that boundary (pressure) within a body. It causes strain or deformation and is typically symbolised by σ or τ.
4. (countable)Force externally applied to a body which cause internal stress within the body.
5. (uncountable)Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.

   “Go easy on him, he's been under a lot of stress lately.”

   “Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional model of stress and coping describes psychological stress as “a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised as taxing or exceeding his or her resources and endangering his or her well-being” (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p.19). According to these authors, the essence of inducing stress is how a person appraises the situation and whether he or she has the physical and mental ability to cope with the problem.”

6. (broadly, countable)A suprasegmental feature of a language having additional attention raised to a sound, word or word group by means of of loudness, duration or pitch; phonological prominence.

   “lexical stress”

   “phrase stress, prosodic stress”

   “Some people put the stress on the first syllable of “controversy”; others put it on the second.”

7. (countable)The suprasegmental feature of a language having additional attention raised to a sound by means of loudness and/or duration; phonological prominence phonetically achieved by means of dynamics as distinct from pitch.
8. (uncountable)Emphasis placed on a particular point in an argument or discussion (whether spoken or written).
9. (alt-of, countable, obsolete, uncountable)Obsolete form of distress.

   “With this sad Hersal of his heavy stress, The warlike Damzel was empassion's sore, And said; Sir Knight, your Cause is nothing less Than is your Sorrow , certes if not more”

10. (countable, uncountable)distress; the act of distraining; also, the thing distrained.

verb

1. (transitive)To apply force to (a body or structure) causing strain.
2. (transitive)To apply emotional pressure to (a person or animal).
3. (informal, intransitive)To suffer stress; to worry or be agitated.
4. (transitive)To emphasise (a syllable of a word).

   ““Emphasis” is stressed on the first syllable, but “emphatic” is stressed on the second.”

5. (transitive)To emphasise (words in speaking).
6. (transitive)To emphasise (a point) in an argument or discussion.

   “I must stress that this information is given in strict confidence.”