Etymologically
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insecurity

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Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˌɪnsɪˈkjʊərəti/, /ˌɪnsəˈkjʊərəti/[1]
  • US: /ˌɪnsɪˈkjʊrət̬i/[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Medieval Latin insēcūritās (“danger, hazard”),[2][3][4][5] from insēcūrus (“insecure”),[3] from Latin in- (“not”) and sēcūrus (“free from care, secure”),[2][3][5] itself from sē- (“free from”) and cūra (“care”).[3] The Shorter Oxford allows that it may instead have been formed in English from the prefix in- and security.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Uncertainty, lack of assurance or confidence: 1646, in Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica.[2] Etymonline dates both this sense and "the state of being unsafe" to the 1640s.[3]

Semantic evolution

The word had two branches from the start: the subjective one, a person's lack of assurance (1646), and the objective one, the condition of being unsafe or liable to give way or fail (1654).[2][6] A plural for particular insecure things or circumstances followed in 1649.[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as "uncertainty; want of reasonable confidence", quoting Browne's phrase "with what insecurity of truth we ascribe effects".[7] The specialized psychological sense, a person's lasting feeling of inadequacy and anxiety, is recorded from 1917, in a translation of Alfred Adler,[2][3] and the adjective insecure took the same sense by 1935.[3]

Timeline

  • 1646 – uncertainty, lack of assurance or confidence.[2][3]
  • 1649 – with a plural, an insecure thing or circumstance.[2]
  • 1654 – the state of being unsafe; liability to give way or fail.[2][6]
  • 1755 – Johnson defines it as uncertainty, want of reasonable confidence.[7]
  • 1917 – in psychology.[2][3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Lack of confidence or assurance; anxiety about oneself or one's position: His jokes hid a deep insecurity.[5][2][6]
  2. Lack of safety or stability; the state of being likely to fail, give way or suffer loss: the insecurity of seasonal work.[5][2][6]
  3. An insecure circumstance or thing: the small insecurities of freelance life.[5][2]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.