angst.

Persistent, troubled anxiety about one’s life, identity, or place in the world.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• existential angst
• adolescent angst
• a novel full of angst

On the page

His letters mixed jokes about college with genuine angst about who he might become.

The play turns private angst into a public argument about belonging.

Beneath her fashionable indifference lay months of angst.

Usage notes

Primary category: fear. Often existential or adolescent; more inward and searching than alarm at an immediate hazard. Can sound dismissive when applied to someone else. Usually uncountable in this sense. Derived family (not additional inflections or records): angsty (informal).