angoscia

Forms

angoscia f (plural angosce)^[1] Old Italian forms include angosgia, angossa, angoxa and anguscia.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin angustia (“narrowness; want, difficulty”), which in the language of the Church came to mean “anguish”.^{[4][5][6][7][1]} The Latin noun was mostly used in the plural, for a narrow pass.^[5][7] The learned angustia is its doublet, as angustiare is of angosciare.^[4][1] Tommaseo compared the change of the Latin /stj/ to ⟨sc⟩ with poscia from Latin postea.^[8]

The same word is French angoisse, Occitan angoisa and Catalan angoixa.^[5][3] Catalan passed it to Spanish, where the first syllable was taken for a prefix and replaced: Spanish congoja.^[9][10] angustia and Portuguese angústia are learned.^[3]

angustia comes from Latin angustus (“narrow”).^[11][6] It belongs with angō (“to strangle, choke”) and anxius (“anxious”), from a root that de Vaan gives as Proto-Indo-European *h₂emǵʰ- (“to tie, tighten”).^[12][5] Nocentini compares Ancient Greek ἄγχω (ánkhō, “to squeeze”) and German Angst (“anxiety”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Tuscan poet Ruggieri d'Amici, in the middle of the 13th century; one manuscript writes angosgia.^[2][3] In the oldest texts the word meant a physical oppression, breathlessness or panting, from illness or more often from strong emotion or grief.^[2] DELI dates the sense “anxiety, oppressive distress” from Brunetto Latini, before 1294.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Old Italian used the word for choking and fainting (cadere in angoscia), for nausea, for hard effort (con angoscia, “with great toil”) and for the pain and grief of body and mind; as in Latin, it could also mean want and poverty.^[2] Dante has the physical sense: quella angoscia che m'avacciava un poco ancor la lena, “that breathlessness which still quickened my breath a little”.^[13][14] The sense of difficult breathing is now obsolete.^[15][16]

In the northern dialects the word means “nausea, disgust”, in Lombardy and Trentino also “desire”, and in the central south “anger, tantrum”.^[3] Abruzzese uses it for whooping cough.^[7] The verb angosciare first meant “to breathe with difficulty” (before 1250, Giacomo da Lentini), and transitive “to cause anguish” from Cino da Pistoia (before 1337).^[4]

In the 20th century existentialism made the word fashionable, as Migliorini noted in 1950.^[4] In 1946 Bacchelli changed a title from angosce to ansie, complaining that the vogue had made angoscia unbearable.^[4] Philosophy uses it for Kierkegaard's and the existentialists' anguish, and psychoanalysis for anxiety.^[16][17][15]

Timeline

• Before 1250 – Giacomo da Lentini uses angosciare “to breathe with difficulty”.^[4]
• Mid-13th century – Ruggieri d'Amici has the first record of angoscia.^[2][3]
• 13th century – Angoscioso is recorded in Tommaso di Sasso.^[4]
• Before 1294 – Brunetto Latini uses angoscia “anxiety, distress”.^[4]
• 1946 – Bacchelli complains of the existentialist vogue of the word.^[4]
• 1950 – Migliorini records it as made fashionable by existentialism.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. anguish: a tormenting state of anxiety and suffering, with fear or deep worry: Passarono la notte nell'angoscia, senza notizie.^{[6][17][15][18]}
2. (psychology, psychoanalysis) A state of deep unease caused by a danger felt but not reasoned out, often with physical symptoms.^[16][17][15]
3. (philosophy) In Kierkegaard and existentialism, the anguish of a person aware of the finiteness of their existence and of the possible.^[16][17][15]
4. (archaic) Difficulty in breathing, a sense of suffocation.^{[6][16][15][18]}

Word family

• angosciare
• angoscioso
• angoscevole

Related words

• angustia
• angusto
• ansia
• French angoisse

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (1997–), Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, CNR, Firenze; tlio.ovi.cnr.it
3. ^ a b c d e f Pfister, Max; Schweickard, Wolfgang; Prifti, Elton (eds.) (1979–), Lessico Etimologico Italiano, Wiesbaden: Reichert; online at lei-digitale.it, p. 2, 1253
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
5. ^ a b c d e Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c d De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
7. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 205
8. ^ Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
14. ^ Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
15. ^ a b c d e f Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
16. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
17. ^ a b c d Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
18. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana