Anxieties

How to spell anxieties

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce anxieties

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anxieties mean?

1. nounFeelings of worry, nervousness, or unease about uncertain outcomes.

Anxieties in a sentence

• The long wait for the test results stirred up old anxieties.

• Talking openly with her manager eased many of her workplace anxieties.

Where does anxieties come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin anxietas, meaning 'uneasiness' or 'trouble of mind', which was built on the adjective anxius, 'worried' or 'distressed'. Both of those trace back to the verb angere, which literally meant 'to choke, to squeeze, or to cause pain', a vivid image of the tight, constricted feeling that worry produces in the chest and throat. English took the noun in through the 1500s, and it has always carried that sense of a nagging, gripping concern about the future. The very same angere root sits inside its close relatives 'anguish' and even 'anger', and it is also why a narrow passage is called a 'strait' from a related squeezing idea. The plural 'anxieties' keeps the tricky Latin spelling: the 'x' standing for the /gz/ sound and the 'ie' before the ending are the parts that most often trip writers up.

How the word is built

• anxi- (from Latin anxius: troubled, uneasy)
• -ety (noun-forming suffix)
• -es (plural)