distressful

comparative more distressful · superlative most distressful · alternative distressfull

1. Causing or feeling distress, anxiety, or strain; distressing.

   If I'm never successful, / It won't be distressful, / 'Cos I don't care.

   1905, “I Don't Care”, Jean Lenox (lyrics), Harry O. Sutton (music), performed by Eva Tanguay

   2 more examples

   There, vvhile above the giddy tempeſt flies, / And all around diſtreſsful yells ariſe, / The penſive exile, bending vvith his vvoe, / To ſtop too fearful, and too faint to go.

   1764 December 19 (indicated as 1765), Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller, or A Prospect of Society. A Poem. […], London: […] J[ohn] Newbery, […], →OCLC, page 21

   Once more, that fulness of prophetic joy, / With which this unborn Jubilee he mark'd / Through the long vista of distressful years, / While the dark war-clouds gathering at his feet / Involved the scene.

   1827, Lydia Sigourney, “On the Death of John Adams”, in Poems […] , Boston: S.G. Goodrich, →OCLC, pages 191–192