The expression "stress" had none of its in progress extensive senses before the 1950s. As a semi-psychological word referring to hardship or coercion, it dated from the 14th century. It is a form of the Middle English destresse, derived via Old French Stress Balls from the Latin stringere â to draw tight. It had long been in use in physics to refer to the circumscribed disposing of a conscription exerted on a material body, resulting in strain.
In the 1920s and 30s, the term was occasionally being passed down in psychological circles to refer to a mental strain or unwelcome happening, and by advocates of holistic medicine to refer to a harmful environmental agent that could consideration illness. Walter Cannon pre-owned it in 1934 to refer to external factors that disrupted what he called "homeostasis".