depression

UK: 'depression', 'Depression': /dɪˈprɛʃən/

US: /dɪˈprɛʃən/

US: (di presh′ən)

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2025

de•pres•sion /dɪˈprɛʃən/   n. 

1. a depressed or sunken place or part;
   an area lower than the surrounding surface:
   [countable] a depression in the carpet where the lamp had stood.
2. sadness;
   dejection, esp. sadness greater and longer than considered normal:
   [uncountable] suffered from long periods of depression.
3. Business a period during which business, employment, and stock-market values fall;
   a decline in the economy:
   [countable] In the 1930's the world experienced a severe depression.
4. Meteorology an area of low air pressure in the atmosphere:
   [countable] a tropical depression in Bermuda.

See -press-.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025

de•pres•sion  (di presh′ən), n. 

1. the act of depressing.
2. Psychiatry the state of being depressed.
3. a depressed or sunken place or part;
   an area lower than the surrounding surface.
4. sadness;
   gloom;
   dejection.
5. Psychiatry a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal;
   sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason. Cf. clinical depression.
6. dullness or inactivity, as of trade.
7. Economics, Business a period during which business, employment, and stock-market values decline severely or remain at a very low level of activity.
8. American History the Depression. See Great Depression. 
9. Pathology a low state of vital powers or functional activity.
10. Astronomy the angular distance of a celestial body below the horizon;
    negative altitude.
11. Surveying the angle between the line from an observer or instrument to an object below either of them and a horizontal line.
12. Geography [Phys. Geog.] an area completely or mostly surrounded by higher land, ordinarily having interior drainage and not conforming to the valley of a single stream.
13. Meteorology an area of low atmospheric pressure.

• Medieval Latin dēpressiōn- (stem of dēpressiō), Late Latin: a pressing down, equivalent. to Latin dēpress(us) (see depress) + -iōn- -ion
• Anglo-French)
• Middle English (1350–1400

Synonyms

• 4. discouragement, despondency.

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

depression / dɪˈprɛʃən/ noun

1. the act of depressing or state of being depressed
2. a depressed or sunken place or area
3. a clinical condition characterized by extreme gloom, feelings of inadequacy, and inability to concentrate
4. an abnormal lowering of the rate of any physiological activity or function, such as respiration
5. an economic condition characterized by substantial and protracted unemployment, low output and investment, etc; slump
6. Also called: cyclone, low a large body of rotating and rising air below normal atmospheric pressure, which often brings rain
7. (esp in surveying and astronomy) the angular distance of an object, celestial body, etc, below the horizontal plane through the point of observation
   Compare elevation11

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

Depression / dɪˈprɛʃən/ noun

1. the Depression ⇒ the worldwide economic depression of the early 1930s, when there was mass unemployment