This Pali? term is not reducable to a single English word, but "pain", "suffering", "stress", "unsatisfactoriness", and "angst" have been used.
The first of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths (the statement of the fundamentals of Buddhism) states:
All of life involves dukkha.
The Buddha repeatedly stated that the only purpose of his system of thought was the cessation of dukkha, and refused to join in speculation about metaphysical subjects which would not advance this end.