angst

Angst is fear or anxiety (anguish is its Latinate equivalent, and the words anxious and anxiety are of similar origin). The dictionary definition for angst is a feeling of anxiety, apprehension, or insecurity. Etymology The word angst was introduced into English from the Danish, Norwegian, and Dutch word and the German word . It is attested since the 19th century in English translations of the works of Søren Kierkegaard and Sigmund Freud. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of apprehension, anxiety, or inner turmoil. In other languages (with words from the Latin for "fear" or "panic"), the derived words differ in meaning; for example, as in the French and . The word angst has existed in German since the 8th century, from the Proto-Indo-European root , "restraint" from which Old High German developed. It is pre-cognate with the Latin , "tensity, tightness" and , "choking, clogging"; compare to the Ancient Greek () "strangle". It entered English in the 19th century as a technical term used in Psychiatry, though earlier cognates existed, such as ange. Existentialism