Angst
angst
English from German
“German dread became English anxiety — the existentialists gave us a word for the malaise of being alive.”
Angst is German for 'fear, anxiety, dread.' English borrowed it wholesale in the 19th century because English 'fear' and 'anxiety' didn't capture the same existential weight.
Søren Kierkegaard used Angst to describe the dizziness of freedom — the dread that comes from knowing you must choose, and every choice forecloses others. Heidegger and Sartre built on this.
English adopted 'angst' for this philosophical anxiety — then diluted it. 'Teen angst' is a cliché. 'Existential angst' is what college students claim. The profundity became a pose.
But the original meaning persists: Angst is not fear of something specific. It's dread at the human condition itself — at freedom, mortality, meaninglessness. The word names what we try not to feel.
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Today
Angst is now casual: 'I have angst about the meeting.' The existential dread of the human condition became workplace anxiety.
But when you wake at 3 AM and feel something nameless pressing down — that's still Angst, in its original meaning. The word waits for those moments.
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