Anxiety

Origins

f. Latin anxi-us troubled in mind (f. ang-re to choke, distress)

Definitions

• 1. The quality or state of being anxious; uneasiness or trouble of mind about some uncertain event; solicitude, concern.

• 2. Strained or solicitous desire (for or to effect some purpose).

• 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.