Insecurities

How to spell insecurities

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce insecurities

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does insecurities mean?

1. nounFeelings of self-doubt, anxiety, or lack of confidence about oneself.

Insecurities in a sentence

• A supportive manager helped her work through her insecurities about public speaking.

• He hides his insecurities behind a constant stream of jokes at work.

Where does insecurities come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin securus, which literally meant 'free from care', built from se- 'without' and cura 'care or worry'. By adding the negative prefix in-, Latin and later scholarly writers formed insecurus and the related insecuritas, describing a state of being unsafe or uneasy. English absorbed 'insecure' and 'insecurity' in the 1600s, at first carrying the broad sense of physical danger or lack of safety, as in an insecure foothold or an insecure fortress. Over the twentieth century, and especially through the language of psychology, the meaning narrowed toward emotional self-doubt, so that today 'insecurities' most often names a person's private anxieties about their own worth. The same cura 'care' root still sits inside 'cure', 'curious', and 'secure', and noticing that buried -secur- helps fix the spelling, since the tricky part is simply stacking -ity onto a recognisable stem before pluralising.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• secur- (from Latin securus: free from care, safe)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)
• -ies (plural)