SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
affliction
noun
A cause of sustained pain, distress, or hardship.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Cause or state of suffering
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topBurden identifies something difficult to bear; scourge suggests a particularly destructive cause.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See affliction in use
In the story, loneliness becomes the traveler's greatest affliction.
Persistent debt becomes an affliction for a second character when unpayable charges cause years of distress and restrict every ordinary choice.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license