| stress | | |
| n. (communication) | 1. accent, emphasis, stress | the relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch).; "he put the stress on the wrong syllable" |
| ~ prosody, inflection | the patterns of stress and intonation in a language. |
| ~ accentuation | the use or application of an accent; the relative prominence of syllables in a phrase or utterance. |
| ~ pitch accent, tonic accent | emphasis that results from pitch rather than loudness. |
| ~ word accent, word stress | the distribution of stresses within a polysyllabic word. |
| ~ sentence stress | the distribution of stresses within a sentence. |
| n. (state) | 2. stress, tenseness, tension | (psychology) a state of mental or emotional strain or suspense.; "he suffered from fatigue and emotional tension"; "stress is a vasoconstrictor" |
| ~ psychological science, psychology | the science of mental life. |
| ~ mental strain, nervous strain, strain | (psychology) nervousness resulting from mental stress.; "his responsibilities were a constant strain"; "the mental strain of staying alert hour after hour was too much for him" |
| ~ yips | nervous tension that causes an athlete to fail (especially causes golfers to miss short putts).; "to avoid the yips he changed his style of putting" |
| ~ breaking point | (psychology) stress at which a person breaks down or a situation becomes crucial. |
| n. (state) | 3. focus, stress | special emphasis attached to something.; "the stress was more on accuracy than on speed" |
| ~ emphasis, accent | special importance or significance.; "the red light gave the central figure increased emphasis"; "the room was decorated in shades of grey with distinctive red accents" |
| n. (state) | 4. strain, stress | difficulty that causes worry or emotional tension.; "she endured the stresses and strains of life"; "he presided over the economy during the period of the greatest stress and danger" |
| ~ difficulty | a condition or state of affairs almost beyond one's ability to deal with and requiring great effort to bear or overcome.; "grappling with financial difficulties" |
| n. (phenomenon) | 5. stress | (physics) force that produces strain on a physical body.; "the intensity of stress is expressed in units of force divided by units of area" |
| ~ natural philosophy, physics | the science of matter and energy and their interactions.; "his favorite subject was physics" |
| ~ force | (physics) the influence that produces a change in a physical quantity.; "force equals mass times acceleration" |
| ~ tension | (physics) a stress that produces an elongation of an elastic physical body.; "the direction of maximum tension moves asymptotically toward the direction of the shear" |
| ~ breaking point | the degree of tension or stress at which something breaks. |
| v. (communication) | 6. accent, accentuate, emphasise, emphasize, punctuate, stress | to stress, single out as important.; "Dr. Jones emphasizes exercise in addition to a change in diet" |
| ~ background, play down, downplay | understate the importance or quality of.; "he played down his royal ancestry" |
| ~ set off, bring out | direct attention to, as if by means of contrast.; "This dress accentuates your nice figure!"; "I set off these words by brackets" |
| ~ re-emphasise, re-emphasize | emphasize anew.; "The director re-emphasized the need for greater productivity" |
| ~ bear down | pay special attention to.; "The lectures bore down on the political background" |
| ~ evince, express, show | give expression to.; "She showed her disappointment" |
| ~ topicalize | emphasize by putting heavy stress on or by moving to the front of the sentence.; "Speakers topicalize more often than they realize"; "The object of the sentence is topicalized in what linguists call `Yiddish Movement'" |
| ~ point up | emphasize, especially by identification.; "This novel points up the racial problems in England" |
| ~ press home, ram home, drive home | make clear by special emphasis and try to convince somebody of something.; "drive home a point or an argument"; "I'm trying to drive home these basic ideas" |
| ~ emphasise, underline, underscore, emphasize | give extra weight to (a communication).; "Her gesture emphasized her words" |
| v. (communication) | 7. accent, accentuate, stress | put stress on; utter with an accent.; "In Farsi, you accent the last syllable of each word" |
| ~ enounce, enunciate, pronounce, sound out, articulate, say | speak, pronounce, or utter in a certain way.; "She pronounces French words in a funny way"; "I cannot say `zip wire'"; "Can the child sound out this complicated word?" |
| v. (emotion) | 8. strain, stress, try | test the limits of.; "You are trying my patience!" |
| ~ afflict | cause great unhappiness for; distress.; "she was afflicted by the death of her parents" |
| ~ rack | stretch to the limits.; "rack one's brains" |
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