Anxiety

How to spell anxiety

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce anxiety

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anxiety mean?

1. nounA feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.

Anxiety in a sentence

• The long wait for the test results filled her with anxiety.

• Public speaking triggers a great deal of anxiety for many adults.

Where does anxiety come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin anxietas, meaning 'a state of uneasiness or distress', which was built on the adjective anxius, 'troubled, worried'. That adjective in turn traces back to the verb angere, meaning 'to choke, squeeze, or cause pain', so the original image was of a tightness or constriction in the chest or throat. English adopted anxiety in the 1500s, taking it directly from the Latin form rather than reshaping it through French, which is why the spelling keeps that awkward -xie- cluster. The same angere root sits behind a surprising family of relatives, including 'anguish', 'anger', and even 'angina', all of which carry that sense of painful tightness. For spellers, the trap is the silent reordering: the word is pronounced 'ang-ZY-uh-tee', yet written with the letters in the order anx-i-e-ty, so the ear and the hand disagree.

How the word is built

• anx- (from anxius: troubled, distressed)
• -ety (noun-forming suffix denoting state or quality)