stress
/stɹɛs/noun, verb
stress is spelled S-T-R-E-S-S. The wrong spelling people search most is stess: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 109 of all searches for the word. Stress is a noun meaning “A physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism”. The plural of stress is stresses.
How many letters and syllables are in stress?
| Letters | 6: S-T-R-E-S-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 54 times per million words; the 1,899th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, stess, about 50 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell stress?
Stress is spelled S-T-R-E-S-S. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 108 of the searches for stress in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is stress?
Stress appears 54 times per million words in written English, the 1,899th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce stress?
- UK /ˈstɹɛs/
- UK /ˈʃt͡ʃɹɛs/
- US /stɹɛs/
Stress has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Xavier_hillier-stress.wav, En-us-stress.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with stress?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as stress from its last stressed vowel (/ɛs/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of stress
- stresses plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- stressing participle, present
- stressed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does stress mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A physical, chemical, infective agent aggressing an organism.
- 2
Aggression toward an organism resulting in a response in an attempt to restore previous conditions.
- 3
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
Force externally applied to a body which cause internal stress within the body.
- 5
Emotional pressure suffered by a human being or other animal.
Go easy on him, he's been under a lot of stress lately.
- 6
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
- 7
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
Emphasis placed on a particular point in an argument or discussion (whether spoken or written).
verb
- 1
To apply force to (a body or structure) causing strain.
- 2
To apply emotional pressure to (a person or animal).
- 3
informalTo suffer stress; to worry or be agitated.
- 4
To emphasise (a syllable of a word).
“Emphasis” is stressed on the first syllable, but “emphatic” is stressed on the second.
- 5
To emphasise (words in speaking).
- 6
To emphasise (a point) in an argument or discussion.
I must stress that this information is given in strict confidence.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Stress in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tension, contrainte , stress , emphase , stresser , emphaser |
| German | Spannung , Stress , Betonung , stressen , betonen , beanspruchen |
| Portuguese | tensão , estresse, stress , ênfase , estressar , tensionar |
| Spanish | estrés, stress , estresar , acentuar , tensionar, tensar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does stress come from?
From a shortening of Middle English destresse, borrowed from Old French destrecier, from Latin distringō (“to stretch out”
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).