miserable
/ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.07 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
4
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
adj
Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent; hopeless.
adj
adj
Example Sentences
- "Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen."
- "With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London."
- "The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation, because occupation means pre-occupation"
- "He's good at some sports, like tennis, but he's just miserable at football."
- "a miserable sinner"
- "In a month's collecting at Wonosalem and Djapannan I accumulated ninety-eight species of birds, but a most miserable lot of insects."
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French miserable, from Old French, from Latin miserabilis, equivalent to miser + -able.
Origin
- Source language: Old French