Worried

How to spell worried

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce worried

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does worried mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling anxious or troubled about something, often a possible problem or danger.
2. verbPast tense of worry: to have felt or caused anxiety, or to have repeatedly pulled or fidgeted at something.

Worried in a sentence

• adjective

  She felt worried about the rising cost of the mortgage.

• verb

  The constant noise from upstairs worried her for weeks.

• adjective

  He gave the doctor a worried look while waiting for the results.

• verb

  The dog worried the old slipper until the stitching came loose.

Where does worried come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The root verb worry comes from the Old English wyrgan, which literally meant 'to strangle' or 'to throttle', the kind of thing a dog does when it seizes prey by the neck. For centuries the word kept this physical, violent sense: to worry an animal was to bite and shake it. Over time the meaning softened from physical strangling to mental harassing, so that to worry someone meant to pester or torment them. By the 1800s the focus shifted again from the person doing the harassing to the person suffering it, giving the modern sense of feeling anxious and troubled. The adjective worried preserves the doubled r of the verb and replaces the y with an i before the ending, which is exactly the spelling step that trips people up.

How the word is built

• worr- (from worry, ultimately Old English wyrgan: to strangle, to harass)
• -ied (adjectival/past form, with y changing to i before the ending)