Origins
f. Latin anxi-us troubled in mind (f. ang-re to choke, distress)
- ca.1525 Sir Thomas More De Quat. Noviss. Wks. 1557, 91 There dyed he without grudge, without anxietie.
Definitions
- 1. The quality or state of being anxious; uneasiness or trouble of mind about some uncertain event; solicitude, concern.
- 3. Path. ‘A condition of agitation and depression, with a sensation of tightness and distress in the præcordial region.’ Syd. Soc. Lex. 1880.
- 4. Psychiatry. A morbid state of mind characterized by unjustified or excessive anxiety, which may be generalized or attached to particular situations. Freq. attrib. and Comb., as anxiety-producing, -ridden adjs.; anxiety complex (cf. COMPLEX n. 3); anxiety hysteria, a form of anxiety neurosis; anxiety neurosis [tr. G. angstneurose (Freud 1895, in Neurolog. Zentralbl. XIV. 55)], anxiety state, names technically applied to such a condition of anxiety.
- 5. Phrase "Age of Anxiety": the title of W. H. Auden's poem applied as a catch-phrase to any period characterized by anxiety or danger.