angst
/ˈæŋ(k)st//ˈeɪ̯ŋ(k)st/
angst noun: emotional turmoil; painful sadness; anguish.
Noun
angst (uncountable)
- Emotional turmoil; painful sadness; anguish.
- I've begun to regret that we'd ever met / Between the dimensions. / It gets such a strain to pretend that the change / Is anything but cheap. / With your infant pique and your angst pretensions / Sometimes you act like such a creep.1979, Peter Hammill, Mirror images
- Harry's adolescence is theatrical and gaudy, and many of its key scenes have a lurid and camp quality that is appropriate to the exaggerated mood-shifting and self-dramatizing of teen angst.2007, Martyn Bone, Perspectives on Barry Hannah, page 3
- A feeling of acute but vague anxiety or apprehension often accompanied by depression, especially philosophical anxiety.
- Fiction focusing on characters experiencing strong emotions and conflicts with other characters.
- General: a story with a general theme. It is neither romance or angst but may incorporate elements of all other genres.(Can we date this quote?), Linda Green, Entering Potter's World: A Guide for Fanfiction Writers, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 21
- Fans prefer fluff to other types of fic. But angst (dramatic stories where characters have a wide range of emotions, including ... angsty ones) comes in a close second.2017 October 31, Ashley J. Barner, The Case for Fanfiction: Exploring the Pleasures and Practices of a Maligned Craft, McFarland, →ISBN, page 67
Verb
angst (third-person singular simple present angsts, present participle angsting, simple past and past participle angsted)
- To suffer angst; to fret.
- In the second scene, the camera switches to the father listening, angsting, dying inside, but saying nothing.2001, Joseph P Natoli, Postmodern Journeys: Film and Culture, 1996-1998
- She'd never angsted so much about her head as she had in the past twenty-four hours. Why the hell hadn't she just left it alone?2006, Liz Ireland, Three Bedrooms in Chelsea
angst meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
angst in Tamil
- பறதி, பதற்றம், தத்துவ பற்றார்வம்
angst in Urdu
- بے چینی, پریشانی, اندیشہ, خوف, اضطراب, اذیت
angst in Malayalam
- apprehension, anxiety, fear
- സന്ത്രാസം, ചിന്താകുലത, ഉൽക്കണ്ഠ, വ്യാകുലത, ഭയാശങ്ക, അക്ഷമ
Examples of angst in a sentence
- It’s also facing angst over a tech-powered future and fighting to stay culturally dominant.
- A bit more angst than schmoopiness, but the underlying feelings are very well communicated.
- Another night of pressure and angst is guaranteed, but there's nowhere else on earth these people would rather be.
Forms of angst
| third-person singular present | angsts |
|---|---|
| present participle | angsting |
| past participle | angsted |
| past | angsted |
Origin of angst
Borrowed from German Angst or Danish angst; attested since the 19th century in English translations of the works of Søren Kierkegaard. Initially capitalized (as in German and contemporaneous Danish), the term first began to be written with a lowercase "a" around 1940–44. The German and Danish terms both derive from Middle High German angest, from Old High German angust, from Proto-Germanic *angustiz; related to anguish, Dutch angst, Swedish ångest.
Words formed from angst
Phrases with angst
Words that rhyme with angst
Questions about angst
- What does angst mean?
- Angst means emotional turmoil; painful sadness; anguish.
- What is angst in Tamil?
- Angst in Tamil is பறதி, பதற்றம், தத்துவ பற்றார்வம். See Angst meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is angst?
- Angst can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce angst?
- Angst is pronounced /ˈæŋ(k)st/.
Words near angst in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: angst (page history and authors); angst (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); angst (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); angst (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-angst.ogg, en-us-angst.ogg.
Cite this entry: “angst.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/angst. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.