adj.
- Very uncomfortable or unhappy; wretched.
- Causing or accompanied by great discomfort or distress: a miserable climate.
- Mean or shameful; contemptible: a miserable trick.
- Wretchedly inadequate: lived in a miserable shack; fed the prisoners miserable rations.
- Of poor quality; inferior: miserable handicraft.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin miserābilis, pitiable, from miserārī, to pity, from miser, wretched.]
miserable mis'er·a·ble n.miserableness mis'er·a·ble·ness n.
miserably mis'er·a·bly adv.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
