A deep, generalized anxiety about existence, freedom, and meaning.
A deep, generalized anxiety about existence, freedom, and meaning; in popular use, brooding emotional turmoil (“teenage angst”).
Distinctive on two axes. Philosophically, it is existential — anxiety about one's place in the world rather than fear of a particular thing, which sets it apart from object-focused apprehension, alarm, or fright. In popular use it carries cultural baggage no other word here has: brooding, self-absorbed, sometimes faintly mocked turmoil. More diffuse and identity-laden than clinical anxiety; unlike worry or nervousness it implies inner turmoil about meaning rather than a discrete threat.
A dread arising from human freedom and the responsibility of choice; anxiety about existence and meaning.
Developed by Kierkegaard (The Concept of Anxiety, 1844, first translated as The Concept of Dread) and carried on by Heidegger and Sartre; entered English via translations of Kierkegaard and Freud.
Brooding, self-absorbed emotional turmoil — “teenage angst,” “existential angst.”
A weakened popular sense, often applied (sometimes mockingly) to youth culture and music; the verb “to angst about” dates to 1988.
From German Angst “fear, anxiety,” from Old High German angust, from PIE *angh- “tight, painfully constricted” — cognate with anger, anguish, and anxious. English-adoption date differs by source (Merriam-Webster 1872; etymonline 1944, from specialized psychology use).
The existential sense was developed by Kierkegaard (1844) and carried forward by Heidegger and Sartre, entering English chiefly through translations of Kierkegaard and Freud. It later broadened, appearing in writing about popular music from the mid-20th century into today's “teen / grunge / emo angst” — the weakened everyday sense (this popular-culture timeline is partly uncited in the sources).