Where does “misery” come from?
Misery comes from Old French miserie, from Latin miseria meaning wretchedness, from miser meaning wretched, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mēwdʰ-.
misery (English): Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe
Definitions
- Great unhappiness; extreme pain of body or mind; wretchedness; distress; woe
Ancestry of “misery”, step by step
misery traces back through two separate lines of ancestry.
via Middle English miserie
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | miserie | misery |
| 2 | Old French | miserie | — |
| 3 | Latin | miseria | misfortune; misery, distress, affliction |
| 4 | Latin | miser | poor, wretched, pitiful; miserable, unhappy;... |
| 5 | Proto-Italic | misseros | — |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | mēwdʰ- | to complain, be emotional about; to complain or... |
via English Missouri
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | Missouri | An indigenous Siouan tribe that originally lived in the Great Lakes region of United States |
| 2 | Miami | wimihsoorita | the people who have dugout canoes |