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To deprive of ease; to disquiet; to trouble; to distress. [Obs.] His double burden did him sore disease. Spenser.

Depression of spirits; discouragement. [R.] Procter, in evident distress and dispiritment, was waiting the slow conclusion of this. Carlyle.

heavily upon; to bear down upon with violence; hence, to constrain or compel; to bind; to distress, torment, or afflict. [Obs.] "Distrained with chains." Chaucer.

The act or proceeding of seizing personal property by distress. Abbott.

Pain; grief; distress; anguish. [Written also dolour.] [Poetic] Of death and dolor telling sad tidings. Spenser.

Sorrowful; distressful. [Obs.] " Dreary shrieks." Spenser.

engraving is made. -- Dry rent (Eng. Law), a rent reserved by deed, without a clause of distress. Bouvier. -- Dry rot, a decay of timber, reducing its fibers to the condition of a dry powdery dust, often accompanied by the presence of a peculiar fungus (Merulius lacrymans), which is sometimes considered the cause of…

The state or condition of being easy; freedom from distress; rest.

At ease; free from pain, trouble, or constraint; as: (a) Free from pain, distress, toil, exertion, and the like; quiet; as, the patient is easy. (b) Free from care, responsibility, discontent, and the like; not anxious; tranquil; as, an easy mind. (c) Free from constraint, harshness, or formality; unconstrained; smooth…

cal truths. These matters economical and political. J. C. Shairp. There was no economical distress in England to prompt the enterprises of colonization. Palfrey. Economic questions, such as money, usury, taxes, lands, and the employment of the people. H. C. Baird.

To convey to a distance, or beyond the jurisdiction, or to conceal, as goods liable to distress. The sheriff may return that the goods or beasts are eloigned. Blackstone.

The act of bearing or suffering; a continuing under pain or distress without resistance, or without being overcome; sufferance; patience. Their fortitude was most admirable in their patience and endurance of all evils, of pain and of death. Sir W. Temple.

A setting at large, or being set at large; release from confinement, servitude, or distress; liberty. Give enlargement to the swain. Shak.

p; to insnare; hence, to catch, as in a trap, by artifices; to involve in difficulties or distresses; to catch or involve in contradictions; as, to be entrapped by the devices of evil men. A golden mesh, to entrap the hearts of men. Shak.

Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous; as, evil tidings; evil arrows; evil days. Because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel. Deut. xxii. 19. The owl shrieked at thy birth -- an evil sign. Shak. Evil news rides post, while good news baits. Milton. E…

The state of being exigent; urgent or exacting want; pressing necessity or distress; need; a case demanding immediate action, supply, or remedy; as, an unforeseen exigency. "The present exigency of his affairs." Ludlow.

An extreme state or condition; hence, calamity, danger, distress, etc. "Resolute in most extremes." Shak.

to make well known by practice or converse; as, to familiarize one's self with scenes of distress.

To exhaust the strength or endurance of, by hunger; to distress with hanger. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread. Cen. xli. 55. The pains of famished Tantalus he'll feel. Dryden.

To harass; to torment; to distress. [Obs.] Spenser.