† 1. Distressed, afflicted. Also absol. Obs.
1559. Aylmer, Harborowe, B 3 b. With a certain choise and judgement to giue passage and safetie to the stressed.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. x. 37. Stird with pitty of the stressed plight of this sad realme.
c. 1590. J. Stewart, Poems (S.T.S.), II. 88. The stressit knycht all stupefact did stand.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., VII. 328. Stress’d Saylers.
2. Marked with a stress, emphasized.
1885. Meredith, Diana, i. The stressed repetition of calculated brevity while a fiery scandal was abroad concerning the lady.
1913. A. C. Clark, Prose Rhythm in English, 18. Rhythm in poetry depends upon the recurrence of longs and shorts, or stressed and unstressed syllables, in a regular order.
