miserable

See also: misérable

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French miserable, from Old French, from Latin miserabilis, equivalent to miser +‎ -able.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Adjective

miserable (comparative more miserable, superlative most miserable)

1. In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
   • 1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0056:

     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.

   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1910, George Bernard Shaw, A Treatise on Parents and Children‎^[1]:

     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

2. Very bad (at something); unskilled, incompetent; hopeless.

   He's good at some sports, like tennis, but he's just miserable at football.

3. Of the weather, extremely unpleasant due to being cold, wet, overcast, etc.
4. Wretched; worthless; mean; contemptible.

   a miserable sinner

5. (obsolete) Causing unhappiness or misery.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     For what's more miserable than discontent?

6. (obsolete) Avaricious; niggardly; miserly.
   • 1594–1597, Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Will[iam] Stansby [for Matthew Lownes], published 1611, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     the liberal-hearted man is by the opinion of the prodigal miserable, and by the judgment of the miserable lavish

Synonyms

• (in a state of misery): See Thesaurus:sad or Thesaurus:lamentable
• (very bad (at)): See Thesaurus:unskilled
• (wretched): See Thesaurus:despicable or Thesaurus:insignificant
• (causing unhappiness): See Thesaurus:lamentable
• (miserly): See Thesaurus:stingy or Thesaurus:greedy

Derived terms

• immiseration, immiserization
• miserabilism
• miserabilist
• miserable as a wet hen
• miserablism
• miserablist

Related terms

• miser
• misery

Collocations

with nouns

• miserable life
• miserable condition
• miserable state
• miserable situation
• miserable day
• miserable time
• miserable creature
• miserable person
• miserable child
• miserable failure
• miserable place
• miserable world
• miserable season
• miserable year
• miserable week
• miserable experience
• miserable feeling
• miserable work
• miserable town
• miserable city
• miserable job
• miserable case
• miserable excuse
• miserable dog

miserable birds

Translations

in a state of misery

• Arabic: بَائِس (ar) (bāʔis)

  Moroccan Arabic: مسْكين m (məskin), مسْكينة f (məskina)

• Armenian: դժբախտ (hy) (džbaxt)
• Azerbaijani: acınacaqlı, miskin
• Bulgarian: окаян (bg) (okajan), злочест (bg) (zločest)
• Catalan: trist (ca) m, desgraciat m, miserable (ca) m or f
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 悲慘／悲惨 (bei¹ caam²), 慘／惨 (caam²), 淒慘／凄惨 (cai¹ caam²)/悽慘／凄惨 (cai¹ caam²)

  Hakka: 悲慘／悲惨 (pî-chhám), 慘／惨 (chhám), 淒慘／凄惨/悽慘／凄惨 (chhî-chhám)

  Hokkien: 悲慘／悲惨 (zh-min-nan) (pi-chhám), 淒慘／凄惨/悽慘／凄惨 (zh-min-nan) (chhi-chhám), 慘／惨 (chhám)

  Mandarin: 悲慘／悲惨 (zh) (bēicǎn), 慘／惨 (zh) (cǎn), 淒慘／凄惨 (qīcǎn)/悽慘／凄惨 (zh) (qīcǎn)

• Cornish: moredhek
• Czech: nešťastný (cs), bědný
• Danish: elendig
• Esperanto: mizera
• Finnish: kurja (fi)
• French: misérable (fr)
• Galician: miserábel (gl) m or f
• German: elend (de), erbärmlich (de), jämmerlich (de), miserabel (de)
• Gothic: 𐍅𐌰𐌹𐌽𐌰𐌷𐍃 (wainahs)
• Greek: άθλιος (el) m (áthlios)

  Ancient: ἄθλιος (áthlios), μέλεος (méleos), (Epic) δύστηνος (dústēnos)

• Gujarati: દુઃખી (duḥkhī), કંગાળ (kaṅgāḷ)
• Haitian Creole: mizerab
• Hebrew: אֻמְלָל (he) m (umlál), מסכן (he) (miskén)
• Hindi: दुःखी (hi) (duḥkhī), उदास (hi) (udās)
• Hungarian: nyomorult (hu)
• Icelandic: ömurlegur (is) m, ömurleg f, ömurlegt n
• Irish: aimléiseach, ainnis (ga), anóiteach, galair
• Japanese: 惨めな (ja) (みじめな, mijime na), 悲惨な (ja) (ひさんな, hisan na)
• Korean: 불행한 상황 (bulhaenghan sanghwang)
• Latin: miser (la)
• Manchu: ᡤᠣᠰᡳᡥᠣᠨ (gosihon)
• Maori: tiwhatiwha, kōtonga
• Middle English: myschevous
• Norman: mînséthabl'ye (Jersey)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: kummerlig (no)

• Old English: earm
• Polish: nędzny (pl), nieszczęśliwy (pl)
• Portuguese: miserável (pt)
• Romanian: mizerabil (ro), nenorocit (ro), mizer (ro)
• Russian: несча́стный (ru) (nesčástnyj), бе́дный (ru) (bédnyj)
• Sanskrit: दीन (sa) (dīna)
• Scottish Gaelic: brònach
• Spanish: miserable (es)
• Tocharian B: anās
• Tày: cáo vá
• Vietnamese: khốn khổ (vi)
• Walloon: mizeråve (wa) m or f, pôvriteus (wa) m, pôvriteuse (wa) f, minåve (wa) m or f
• Welsh: penisel (cy)

very bad (at)

• Bulgarian: лош (bg) (loš)
• Czech: mizerný (cs) m
• Finnish: kurja (fi), avuton (fi)
• German: miserabel (de)
• Greek: κακός (el) m (kakós), αξιοθρήνητος (el) m (axiothrínitos)
• Hebrew: גרוע m (garúa), מחורבן m (mekhurbán) (vulgar)
• Hungarian: gyatra (hu), pocsék (hu)
• Japanese: 下手な (ja) (へたな, heta na)
• Portuguese: horrível (pt)
• Russian: неуме́лый (ru) (neumélyj)

wretched

• Finnish: kurja (fi)
• Greek:

  Ancient: ἄθλιος (áthlios)

• Irish: dearóil
• Latin: miser (la)
• Maori: tureikura
• Middle English: myschevous

Noun

miserable (plural miserables)

1. A miserable person; a wretch.
   • 1838, The Foreign Quarterly Review, volume 21, page 181:

     Dona Carmen repaired to the balcony to chat and jest with, and at, these miserables, who stopped before the door to rest in their progress. All pretended poverty while literally groaning under the weight of their riches.

   • 2003, Richard C. Trexler, Reliving Golgotha: The Passion Play of Iztapalapa, pages 46–47:

     The charge that those who played Jesus in these representations were treated badly by the plays' Jews and Romans left one commissioner cold: in his view, these miserables were beaten much less severely by the players than they were by their actual lords or curacas.

2. (informal, in the plural, with definite article) A state of misery or melancholy.
   • 1984, Barbara Wernecke Durkin, Oh, You Dundalk Girls, Can't You Dance the Polka?, page 10:

     By 3:00 P.M. both DeeDee and Sandra's pants were thoroughly soaked, and this unhappy circumstance gave DeeDee a bad case of the miserables.

Anagrams

• marbelise, marbleise

Catalan

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin miserābilis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [mi.zəˈɾab.blə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [mi.zeˈɾa.ble]

Adjective

miserable m or f (masculine and feminine plural miserables)

1. miserable

German

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Adjective

miserable

1. inflection of miserabel:
   1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
   2. strong nominative/accusative plural
   3. weak nominative all-gender singular
   4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Spanish

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin miserābilis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /miseˈɾable/ [mi.seˈɾa.β̞le]
• Rhymes: -able
• Syllabification: mi‧se‧ra‧ble

Adjective

miserable m or f (masculine and feminine plural miserables)

1. miserable
2. poor
3. greedy, stingy

Derived terms

• miserablemente

 

Related terms

• miseria
• mísero

 

Further reading

• “miserable”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), 23rd edition, Royal Spanish Academy, 2014 October 16