anxiety

In Fr. anziété; Port. anxiedade; Ital. ansieta; Lat, anxietas, from anxius.] [ANXIOUS.] 1. Ord. Lang.: Trouble, solicitude, or mental distre , on discerning the seeming approach of a future event which it is believed will, on its arrival, inflict on one lo , injury, or sorrow, and which one fails clearly to see any practicable means of averting. "Another week of anxiety and agitation pa ed away."-Macaulay: Hist . Eng . , ch. viii. 2. Med.: Lowne of spirits, restle ne , with uneasine of the stomach. "In anxieties which attend fevers, when the cold fit is over, a warmer regimen may be allowed; and because anxieties often happen by spasms from wind, spices are useful."- Arbuthnot . anxious (ank' shus), adj . [In Fr. anxieux ; Sp. & Ital. ansioso ; Port. anzioso; Lat. anx ius , from an go = to pre tightly, to strangle.] [ANGER.] 1. Very much troubled and solicitous about some future event of a nature likely to be painful to one, and which one knows no means of averting. "Our days are number'd, let us spare Our anzious hearts a needle care." Cowper: Guion's Love of God. 2. Inspiring anxiety; such as cannot be contemplated without some measure of doubt and fear. "An anxious duty! which the lofty site, Far from all public road or beaten way Words worth Excursion, bk. v. "And, reading here his sentence, how replete With anxious meaning, heavenward turn his eye!" Cowper: Bill of Mortality (1788). 3. Eagerly desirous (to do something). "He sneers alike at those wh who are anzious to preserve, and at those who are eager reform."- Macaulay : Hist. Eng ., ch. ii. Anxious is followed by a verb in the infinitive, or by about , concerning , or for , of the noun designating the object of solicitude. "No writings we need to be solicitous about the meaning of, but those ose that contain truths we are to believe, or laws we are to obey; we may be le anxious about the sense of other authors."-Locke. The phrase anxious of is rare or obsolete. " Anxious of neglect, suspecting change."-Granville.