miserable

Meanings

1. Very unhappy, or very uncomfortable.
2. Causing unhappiness or discomfort.
3. Very poor in quality or amount.

Example sentences

• "I felt miserable after I lost my phone."

  Level A2, Meaning 1

• "It was a cold, miserable day, so we stayed inside."

  Level A2, Meaning 2

• "He earns a miserable wage for very long hours."

  Level B2, Meaning 3

• "Stop making yourself miserable over one small mistake."

  Level B1, Meaning 1

Synonyms and antonyms

Look-alikes and common mistakes

• sad : Sad is a general feeling of sorrow. Miserable is stronger and often includes being uncomfortable or fed up.
• miserly : Miserly describes someone who hates spending money. It sounds close to miserable but has a different meaning.
• misery : Misery is the noun for great unhappiness. Miserable is the adjective that describes it.

Word family and forms

Word partners

Words and phrases that often go with "miserable".

• feel miserable
• miserable weather
• a miserable failure
• miserable conditions
• utterly miserable
• make someone miserable

Origin

Miserable comes from Latin miserabilis, which meant deserving pity. It was built on the verb miserari, to pity, which comes from miser, the Latin word for wretched. The English word appeared around 1400, by way of Old French.

Checked against: Wiktionary, the free dictionary, Dictionary.com.

How to remember it

Say it in four beats, MIZ-er-a-ble, and let your voice droop on the last one, like the mood it describes.

Test yourself

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