【Distress】 , 【suffering】 , 【misery】 , 【agony】 , 【dolor】 , 【passion】 are comparable when denoting the state of one that is in great trouble or in pain of mind or body.
【Distress】 commonly implies conditions or circumstances that cause physical or mental stress or strain; usually also it connotes the possibility of relief or the need of assistance.
The word is applicable to things as well as to persons; thus, a ship in 【distress】 is helpless and in peril because of some untoward circumstance (as a breakdown in machinery); a community's 【distress】 may be the result of a disaster or of an event imposing extreme hardships on the people.
When used to designate a mental state, 【distress】 usually implies the stress or strain of fear, anxiety, or shame.
【Suffering】 is used especially in reference to human beings; often it implies conscious awareness of pain or 【distress】 and conscious endurance.
【Misery】 stresses the unhappy or wretched conditions attending 【distress】 or 【suffering】 ; it often connotes sordidness, or dolefulness, or abjectness.
【Agony】 suggests 【suffering】 so intense that both body and mind are involved in a struggle to endure the unbearable.
【Dolor】 is a somewhat literary word applied chiefly to mental 【suffering】 that involves sorrow, somber depression, or grinding anxiety.
【Passion】 is now rare in this sense except in reference to the sufferings of Jesus in the garden at Gethsemane and culminating in his crucifixion.
