Angst
Pronunciation
- Canada IPA: /æŋ(k)st/
- Canada IPA: /eɪŋ(k)st/
- Rhymes: -æŋkst
Origin
From the German word Angst or the Danish word angst; attested since the 19th century in English translations of the works of Freud and Søren Kierkegaard. (George Eliot used the phrase complete with definite article: "die Angst".) Initially capitalized (as in German and contemporaneous Danish), the term first began to be written with a lowercase "a" around 1940–44.
Merriam Webster Online|angst
Dictionary.com|angst
Online Etymology Dictionary, "angst"
The German and Danish terms both derive from Middle High German angest, from Old High German angust, from Proto-Germanic *angustiz; Dutch angst is cognate.
Full definition of angst
Noun
angst
(uncountable)- Emotional turmoil; painful sadness.
- 1979, Peter Hammill, Mirror imagesI've begun to regret that we'd ever met
Between the dimensions.
It gets such a strain to pretend that the change
Is anything but cheap.
With your infant pique and your angst pretensions
Sometimes you act like such a creep. - 2007, Martyn Bone, Perspectives on Barry Hannah (page 3)Harry's adolescence is theatrical and gaudy, and many of its key scenes have a lurid and camp quality that is appropriate to the exaggerated mood-shifting and self-dramatizing of teen angst.
- A feeling of acute but vague anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression, especially philosophical anxiety.
Derived terms
Verb
- (informal) To suffer angst; to fret.
- 2001, Joseph P Natoli, Postmodern Journeys: Film and Culture, 1996-1998In the second scene, the camera switches to the father listening, angsting, dying inside, but saying nothing.
- 2006, Liz Ireland, Three Bedrooms in ChelseaShe'd never angsted so much about her head as she had in the past twenty-four hours. Why the hell hadn't she just left it alone?