From jubbity to mubble fubbles, anxiety is well catered for in the historical dictionary
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The story of the word anxiety itself gives us a sense of the chokehold that worry can bring.
By Susie Dent
Confused tremor and fremescence; waxing into thunderpeals, of Fury stirred on by Fear.’ In his history of the French Revolution, Thomas Carlyle charted the build-up of frustration and anxiety that was to eventually erupt inexorably. He was the first to give us the term ‘fremescence’, a description of ‘an incipient roaring’. In other words, this was a growing sense of dissatisfaction that could only go one way. Some of us may be aware of a similarly low roar now, as we approach the autumn with dread over rising prices, continuing war on our doorsteps, and the unknown quantity of a new Prime Minister to navigate us (or not) through it all. If ever we needed to borrow from the lexicon of unease, it’s probably now.
Anxiety is well catered for in the historical dictionary. The story of that word itself, from the Latin angere, to ‘strangle’, gives us a sense of the chokehold that wor...
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