Other forms: anxieties
Anxiety is persistent worry out of proportion to the cause. Suffer from anxiety, an anxiety disorder, high anxiety.
It differs from fear in having no present object — fear is about something here and anxiety is about what might happen — and it produces real physical symptoms because the body prepares for a threat that never arrives. It is treatable. Note that the Latin root means to choke, the same one behind anger and angst.
1nounanxietyPersistent worry out of proportion to the cause.
“Her anxiety about exams kept her awake every night.”
anxiety is a state of worry.
Latin anxietas comes from anxius, troubled, from angere, to choke or distress. Anger, angst and anguish come from the same choking.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂enǵʰ-
Latin
ānxietās
English, today
anxiety
Built from
Latin ānxietās, from ānxius (“anxious, solicitous, distressed, troubled”), from angō (“to distress, trouble”), akin to Ancient Greek ἄγχω (“to choke”). Equivalent to anxious + ety. See anger; angst.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA