stress
n. C / Un. a feeling of worry or pressure caused by a difficult situation. It can also mean the physical force you put on an object or the extra sound you give to a part of a word.
n. a state of mental or emotional strain resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances. Also refers to the physical pressure exerted on a material object or the emphasis given to a particular syllable in speech.
I feel a lot of stress before a big exam.
The doctor explained that high levels of work stress can lead to physical health problems like headaches.
Engineers must calculate the maximum stress a bridge can withstand before the structural integrity of the steel beams is compromised by the weight of the traffic.
From a shortening of Middle English destresse, borrowed from Old French destrecier, from Latin distringō (“to stretch out”). This form probably coalesced with Middle English stresse, from Old French estrece (“narrowness”), from Vulgar Latin *strictia, from Latin strictus (“narrow”). In the sense of "mental strain" or “disruption”, used occasionally in the 1920s and 1930s by psychologists, including Walter Cannon (1934); in “biological threat”, used by endocrinologist Hans Selye, by metaphor with stress in physics (force on an object) in the 1930s, and popularized by same in the 1950s.
Uncountable when referring to general emotional strain; countable when referring to specific forces or linguistic emphases.
I have much stressesI have a lot of stressWhen referring to general mental pressure, the word is uncountable and should not be used in the plural.