| Main Entry: | |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | mental weight; stress |
| Synonyms: | Herculean task, accountability, affliction, albatross, anxiety, ball and chain, blame, care, charge, clog, concern, deadweight, difficulty, duty, encumbrance, excess baggage, grievance, hardship, hindrance, load, millstone, misfortune, mishap, obstruction, onus, punishment, responsibility, sorrow, strain, task, tax, thorn in one's side, trial, trouble, weary load, work, worry |
| Antonyms: | aid, help, relief |
| Main Entry: | afflict |
| Part of Speech: | verb |
| Definition: | cause or become hurt |
| Synonyms: | agonize, annoy, beset, bother, burden, crucify, distress, grieve, harass, harrow, harry, irk, lacerate, martyr, oppress, pain, pester, plague, press, rack, smite, strike, torment, torture, trouble, try, vex, worry, wound |
| Notes: | afflict is generally used with living beings; inflict is generally used with inanimate objects inflict takes 'on,' afflict takes 'with' |
| Antonyms: | aid, comfort, help, solace, stay away from, take care of |
| Main Entry: | amount |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | whole effect |
| Synonyms: | body, burden, core, full value, import, matter, purport, result, sense, significance, substance, thrust, upshot, value |
| Notes: | use 'amount' with things that cannot be counted but 'number' with things that can be counted number is regularly used with count nouns, while amount is mainly used with mass nouns: number of mistakes, amount of money |
| Main Entry: | bane |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | cause of misery |
| Synonyms: | affliction, blight, burden, bête noir, calamity, curse, despair, destruction, disaster, downfall, fatal attraction, misery, nuisance, pest, plague, poison, ruin, ruination, scourge, torment, trial, trouble, undoing, venom, woe |
| Antonyms: | advantage, blessing, fortune, good luck |
| Main Entry: | blame |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | responsibility |
| Synonyms: | accountability, answerability, burden, culpability, fault, guilt, incrimination, liability, onus, rap |
| Main Entry: | body |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | main part of written work |
| Synonyms: | argument, burden, core, discourse, dissertation, evidence, exposition, gist, heart, material, meat, pith, sense, substance, text, thesis, treatise, upshot |
| Main Entry: | brunt |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | bad end of a situation |
| Synonyms: | burden, force, full force, impact, pressure, shock, strain, stress, tension, thrust, violence |
| Main Entry: | capacity |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | volume; limit of volume held |
| Synonyms: | accommodation, amplitude, bulk, burden, compass, contents, dimensions, expanse, extent, full, holding ability, holding power, latitude, magnitude, mass, measure, proportions, quantity, range, reach, retention, room, scope, size, space, spread, standing room only, sufficiency, sweep |
| Notes: | applied to a person, ability and capacity mean about the same thing but are grammatically different: an ability to do something, a capacity for doing something; ability is qualitative while capacity is quantitative capacity refers to a general ability to comprehend an issue or perform a task; capability implies a reference to one of a set of such abilities |
| Main Entry: | care |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | personal interest, concern |
| Synonyms: | affliction, aggravation, alarm, anguish, annoyance, anxiety, apprehension, bother, burden, chagrin, charge, consternation, discomposure, dismay, disquiet, distress, disturbance, encumbrance, exasperation, fear, foreboding, fretfulness, handicap, hardship, hindrance, impediment, incubus, load, misgiving, nuisance, onus, oppression, perplexity, pressure, responsibility, solicitude, sorrow, stew, strain, stress, sweat, tribulation, trouble, uneasiness, unhappiness, vexation, woe, worry |
| Antonyms: | carelessness, disregard, ignorance, inattention, neglect, negligence, oversight, thoughtlessness |