Etymologically
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Angst

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Pronunciation

  • /aŋst/, [ʔaŋst], [ʔaŋkst][1]

Forms

Angst f (genitive Angst, plural Ängste)[1] In Middle High German and Early New High German the noun was often masculine.[2][3] Unlike most words of its field it has always had a plural, perhaps under the influence of the Latin plural angustiae.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German angest, inherited from Old High German angust, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *angusti-.[4][5][3] The word is limited to German, Dutch and Frisian: Middle Low German angest, Middle Dutch anxt, Dutch angst and Old Frisian ongost belong here, while Danish angst and Swedish ångest were borrowed from Middle Low German.[5][6][3]

It is an abstract noun formed with a suffix ⟨st⟩ from the adjective that survives in eng, Proto-Germanic *anguz (“narrow”), so that its first meaning was “narrowness, tightness”.[4][5][1] Others derive it from a noun stem in ⟨s⟩ meaning “oppression, distress”, which is attested in Old Norse angr (“sorrow, grief”).[7] The root is Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ- (“to constrict”), also found in Sanskrit अंहस् (áṁhas, “distress, anxiety”), Avestan ązah- (“constriction”), Latin angor (“strangling, anguish”) and angustus (“narrow”).[4][5][1] The Latin word comes closest to the German one in form, but the analysis of the ⟨st⟩ is still disputed.[3]

From the 11th century the unstressed ⟨u⟩ of the second syllable was weakened, giving angist and then angest.[8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German angust is first recorded in glosses about 765, then in Otfrid and Notker.[9][10] It meant “mental distress, fear, worry, unrest”, but also “suffering, pain, sickness”, translating Latin angustia, anxietas and cura.[3][10]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German and until the 17th and 18th centuries the word was often more concrete than today, “affliction, need, suffering”, especially in pairs such as Angst und Not.[2][11] Early New High German also used it for military distress and for “risk”, and the bell rung on Thursday evenings in memory of Christ's agony was called the Angst.[12]

The theory of the passions of the 18th century made it more psychological: Sulzer in 1771 calls it the highest degree of fear.[2] Under the influence of Kierkegaard it became a central term of psychology and philosophy (Freud, Jaspers), often for a fear without a definite object; specialists distinguish it in this way from Furcht, which has an object.[2][13] Only in the last hundred years has Angst become more frequent than Furcht.[2]

The word was borrowed into English as angst in 1849, and Hebrew has it as a loan too.[14]

Timeline

  • c. 765 – Old High German angust appears in glosses.[9]
  • 11th century – Spellings with a weakened vowel, angist, angest.[8]
  • 14th century – The phrase jemandem angst machen, with angst felt as an adjective.[15]
  • 1519 – Luther writes the comparative engster “more afraid”.[15]
  • 1771 – Sulzer defines Angst as the highest degree of fear.[2]
  • 1849 – English borrows angst.[14]

Meanings

Noun

  1. fear, anxiety: an oppressive feeling of being threatened, often with no definite cause: Sie hat Angst vor großen Hunden.[13][1]
  2. Worry, concern that something will happen: Er hatte Angst, den Zug zu verpassen.[13][2]
  3. (psychology, philosophy) Anxiety without a definite object, as opposed to Furcht “fear of something”.[13][2]

Word family

  • ängstlich
  • ängstigen
  • Todesangst
  • Lebensangst
  • Prüfungsangst
  • eng
  • bange
  • English angst

Usage notes

In mir ist angst, jemandem angst machen the word is felt as an adjective, and older writers even formed a comparative ängster; the pairing angst und bange is recorded since Luther.[6][16][5] In tausend Ängsten schweben “to be in a thousand fears” is quoted from Adelung in 1774.[2] The adjective ängstlich goes back to Old High German angustlīh, and ängstigen replaced the older ängsten.[5][6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  3. ^ a b c d e Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 1, 253
  4. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 45
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  6. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 97
  7. ^ Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Neubearbeitung (1965–2018), ed. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 9 vols. (A–F), Leipzig / Stuttgart: Hirzel, p. 2, 1000
  8. ^ a b Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch (1952–), founded by Elisabeth Karg-Gasterstädt and Theodor Frings, Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag / De Gruyter; online awb.saw-leipzig.de, p. 1, 523
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 37
  11. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 71
  12. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  13. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  14. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  15. ^ a b Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Neubearbeitung (1965–2018), ed. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 9 vols. (A–F), Leipzig / Stuttgart: Hirzel, p. 2, 1002
  16. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 359