MISERY

[noun]We have witnessed the most appalling scenes of human misery. [U]Drought has brought misery and death to the area for the fifth successive year. [U]Ten years of marriage to him have made her life a misery. [C]Every day, millions of people have to endure the miseries of travelling to work on crowded commuter trains. [C]A misery is also someone who is often very unhappy and is always complaining about things.He's been such a misery since his girlfriend went abroad without him.If you put an animal out of its misery, you kill it because it is in great pain and so that it does not have to suffer any more.We asked the vet to put our cat out of her misery after she was run over by a bus.(figurative) We try to put our students out of their misery (= stop them worrying) and give them their exam results as early as possible.