Other forms: worried, worries, worrying
Worry is what your mind does when it will not let go of something bad that might happen. The exam on Friday, the noise the car started making, a message left unanswered since Tuesday.
It works as a verb and as a noun: you worry about money, and money is a worry. Turn it round and the frightening thing becomes the subject — the silence from the hospital worried her all afternoon. A worried face shows it, and worry lines are the ones that get carved between the eyebrows. In Britain a dog that chases and bites sheep is said to worry them, which is where the word began. The phrase not to worry is the friendly way of saying it does not matter.
1verbworryTo keep thinking about something bad that might happen, and to feel anxious because of it.
“Try not to worry about the results until they arrive.”
2verbanxiousTo make someone anxious.
“It worries me that nobody has answered the phone all morning.”
3nounanxietyAn anxious thought, or the anxious feeling itself.
“Money is her main worry at the moment.”
4verbdogOf a dog: to chase and bite an animal, shaking it in the teeth.
“Farmers here shoot dogs that worry sheep.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Worry started out violent. In Middle English worien meant to choke or strangle, from Old English wyrgan, and behind that a Proto-Indo-European root werg- meaning bind or squeeze — the same idea that gives us wring. A dog worrying a sheep has it by the throat; from that came harassing a person, and from that the modern sense of a thought that has you by the neck.
Proto-Indo-European
*werǵʰ- — bind, squeeze
Proto-Germanic
*wurgijaną
Proto-West Germanic
*wurgijan
Old English
wyrġan
Middle English
worien — to choke, strangle
English, today
worry
From Middle English worien (“to choke, strangle”), from Old English wyrġan, from Proto-West Germanic wurgijan, from Proto-Germanic wurgijaną, from Proto-Indo-European werǵʰ- (“bind, squeeze”). Cognate with Dutch worgen, wurgen, German würgen. Compare Latin urgeo (“to press, push”), Sanskrit वृहति (“to tear out, pluck”), Lithuanian ver̃žti (“to string; squeeze”), Russian (poetic) отверза́ть (“to open”) literally “to untie”. Related to wring.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA