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discomfort

nounverbattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//dɪsˈkʌmfət//
  • United States//dɪsˈkʌmfɚt//

Mental or bodily distress.

noun

  1. 1

    Mental or bodily distress.

    […] although overcrowding on the trains running via London Bridge has occasioned considerable discomfort to regular travellers, it was noticed that the alternative route was not extensively patronised, and that the trains were seldom more than half-filled.

    The Western operating authorities are wisely concentrating their main line diesel power at individual sheds, beginning with Laira, so that engine-crews do not have the rather demoralising experience of switching about constantly between the comfort and ease of diesel handling and the relative discomfort and hard work of the steam footplate, as on other Regions.

  2. 2

    Something that disturbs one’s comfort; an annoyance.

    Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.

    This happened in the past several years, and it worsened conditions in sectors such as foreign debt, electricity output, rubbish collection, water delivery, and other essential services, to the discomfort of the majority of Lebanese who have spoken out intermittently against the oligarchy of sectarian leaders who rule the country.

Etymology

From Middle English discomforten, from Anglo-Norman descomforter, equivalent to dis- + comfort.

verb

  1. 1

    To cause annoyance or distress to.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo discourage; to deject.

    His funeral shall not be in our camp, Lest it discomfort us.

Forms

plural
discomforts
past tense
discomforted
past participle
discomforted
present participle
discomforting
third person singular
discomforts
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).