discomfort

UK/dɪsˈkʌmfət/US/dɪsˈkʌmfɚt/

nounB1+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,691 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: discomforts

Discomfort is a mild but persistent feeling of pain or unease. Some discomfort, cause discomfort, physical discomfort.

In medicine it is the deliberate understatement doctors use before something that will hurt, and patients learn to distrust it. It also covers social unease, where discomfort is the feeling of being somewhere you do not belong.

Definitions of discomfort

1noundiscomfortA mild but persistent feeling of pain or unease.B1+
“You may feel some discomfort for a few days after the injection.”

discomfort is a feeling.

Where it comes from

Old French desconforter, dis- plus comfort, from Latin confortare, to strengthen, from fortis, strong.

Anglo-Norman
descomforter
Middle English
discomforten
English, today
discomfort

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

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

discomfort in the wild

In females, the discomfort occurs in the erectile tissue and clitoris of the vulva.
Epididymal hypertension
Chest pain is pain or discomfort in the chest, typically the front of the chest.
Chest pain
Many women wear sports bras to reduce pain and physical discomfort caused by breast movement during exercise.
Sports bra
In medicine, tenderness is pain or discomfort when an affected area is touched.
Tenderness (medicine)
Individuals experiencing a lack of comfort are typically described as uncomfortable or in discomfort.
Comfort

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

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