Adversity

 WORD OF THE DAY

adversity / noun / ad-VER-suh-tee

Definition
: a state or instance of serious or continued difficulty or misfortune

Examples
"ABC7 News Anchor Reggie Aqui spoke with Jeopardy! champion Amy Schneider about how her life has changed since her historic run on the show. Schneider discussed how she has been able to overcome adversity being a trans woman in the spotlight."
— ABC News, 2 Mar. 2022

After two years of research, I discovered that everyone has a crisis personality survivor IQ—that they marshal in a moment of adversity: a mindset and ways of thinking about a situation.
— Ben Sherwood, Newsweek, 2 Feb. 2009

Did You Know?
Adversity comes from Middle English adversite, meaning "opposition, hostility, misfortune, or hardship," which itself is from Latin adversus, the source of adverse, which means "bad or unfavorable," as in "adverse criticism" or "an adverse reaction to the medication."
Adversity, mishap, misfortune, and mischance all suggest difficulty of one sort or another. Adversity particularly applies to a state of grave or persistent misfortune (as in "a childhood marked by great adversity").
Mishap suggests an often trivial instance of bad luck (as in "the usual mishaps of a family vacation"). Misfortune is the most common and the most general of the terms, often functioning as a simple synonym of "bad luck" (as in "having the misfortune to get a flat tire on the way to their wedding").
Mischance applies especially to a situation involving no more than slight inconvenience or minor annoyance (as in "a small mischance that befell us").