The relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch):
— He put the stress on the wrong syllable.

synonyms: accent, emphasis.

Roget 630: requirement, need, wants, necessities; necessaries, necessaries of life; stress, exigency, pinch, sine qua non, matter of necessity; case of need, case of life or death.    needfulness, essentiality, necessity, indispensability, urgency.    requisition etc. (request) 765, (exaction) 741; run upon; demand, call for.    charge, claim, command, injunction, mandate, order, precept.    desideratum etc. (desire) 865; want etc. (deficiency) 640.    ... show more

Roget 642: importance, consequence, moment, prominence, consideration, mark, materialness.    import, significance, concern; emphasis, interest.    greatness etc. 31; superiority etc. 33; notability etc. (repute) 873; weight etc. (influence) 175; value etc. (goodness) 648; usefulness etc. 644.    gravity, seriousness, solemnity; no joke, no laughing matter; pressure, urgency, stress; matter of life and death.    memorabilia, notabilia^†, great doings; red-letter day.    great thing, great point; main chance, the be all and the end all" [Macbeth]; cardinal point; substance, gist etc. (essence) 5; sum and substance, gravamen, head and front; important part, principal part, prominent part, essential part; half the battle; sine qua non; breath of one's nostrils etc. (life) 359; cream, salt, core, kernel, heart, nucleus; keynote, keystone; corner stone; trump card etc. (device) 626; salient points.    top sawyer, first fiddle, prima donna [Sp.], chief; triton among the minnows; 'it' [U.S.].   " ... show more

Roget 704: difficulty; hardness etc. adj.; impracticability etc. (impossibility) 471; tough work, hard work, uphill work; hard task, Herculean task, Augean task^†; task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough job, teaser, rasper^†, dead lift.    dilemma, embarrassment; deadlock; perplexity etc. (uncertainty) 475; intricacy; entanglement, complexity etc. 59; cross fire; awkwardness, delicacy, ticklish card to play, knot, Gordian knot, dignus vindice nodus [Lat.], net, meshes, maze; coil etc. (convolution) 248; crooked path; involvement.    nice point, delicate point, subtle point, knotty point; vexed question, vexata quaestio [Lat.], poser; puzzle etc. (riddle) 533; paradox; hard nut to crack, nut to crack; bone to pick, crux, pons asinorum [Lat.], where the shoe pinches.    nonplus, quandary, strait, pass, pinch, pretty pass, stress, brunt; critical situation, crisis; trial, rub, emergency, exigency, scramble.    scrape, hobble, slough, quagmire, hot water, hornet's nest; sea of troubles, peck of troubles; pretty kettle of fish; pickle, stew, imbroglio, mess, ado; false position.    set fast, stand, standstill; deadlock, dead set.    fix, horns of a dilemma, cul de sac [Fr.]; hitch; stumbling block etc. (hindrance) 706.    [difficult person] crab; curmudgeon.    ... show more

Roget 580: voice; vocality^†; organ, lungs, bellows; good voice, fine voice, powerful voice etc. (loud) 404; musical voice etc. 413; intonation; tone of voice etc. (sound) 402.    vocalization; cry etc. 411; strain, utterance, prolation^†; exclamation, ejaculation, vociferation, ecphonesis^†; enunciation, articulation; articulate sound, distinctness; clearness, of articulation; stage whisper; delivery.    accent, accentuation; emphasis, stress; broad accent, strong accent, pure accent, native accent, foreign accent; pronunciation.    [Word similarly pronounced] homonym.    orthoepy^†; cacoepy^†; euphony etc. (melody) 413.    gastriloquism^†, ventriloquism; ventriloquist; polyphonism^†, polyphonist^†.    [Science of voice] phonology etc. (sound) 402.    ... show more

Dutch: benadrukking, accent, beklemtoning, emfaze, klemtoon, nadruk
Polish: akcent

psychology A state of mental or emotional strain or suspense:
— Stress is a vasoconstrictor.

synonyms: tenseness, tension.

Dutch: nervositeit, overspannenheid, overspanning, spanning, stress
Polish: nerwowość

Special emphasis attached to something:
— The stress was more on accuracy than on speed.

synonym: focus.

Difficulty that causes worry or emotional tension:
— She endured the stresses and strains of life.
— He presided over the economy during the period of the greatest stress and danger.

synonym: strain.

Roget 686: exertion, effort, strain, tug, pull, stress, throw, stretch, struggle, spell, spurt, spirt^†; stroke of work, stitch of work.    a strong pull a long pull and a pull all a strong pull a long pull and a pull all together;" dead lift; heft; gymnastics; exercise, exercitation^†; wear and tear; ado; toil and trouble; uphill work, hard work, warm work; harvest time.    labor, work, toil, travail, manual labor, sweat of one's brow, swink^†, drudgery, slavery, fagging^†, hammering; limae labor [Lat.]; industry, industriousness, operoseness^†, operosity^†.    trouble, pains, duty; resolution etc. 604; energy etc. (physical) 171.    ... show more

Dutch: spanning, stress
Polish: zdenerwowanie, stres

physics Force that produces strain on a physical body.

Dutch: spankracht, spanning
Polish: naprężenie

To stress, single out as important.

synonyms: accent, accentuate, emphasise, emphasize, punctuate.

Dutch: accentueren, profileren

Put stress on; utter with an accent.

synonyms: accent, accentuate.

Dutch: beklemtonen, accentueren, benadrukken

Test the limits of.

synonyms: strain, try.

Dutch: beproeven