Anxiety
Etymology
From Latin "anxietas," from "anxius," from "angere" — “to choke, squeeze, cause pain.” The bodily truth is in the root: anxiety is the sensation of being constricted, the tight chest and closed throat. The same root "angere" gives us "anguish," "angina," and even, distantly, "anger."
noun · /ang-ZY-uh-tee/
A diffuse, anticipatory unease about a threat that is uncertain, future, or unnamed.
What it names
Use it for dread without a clear object — the background hum of “what if” that has no single thing to point at.
Example
It wasn’t any one thing — just a low anxiety that trailed him from meeting to meeting all day.
Related idea
Against fear: fear is a response to a present, specific danger; anxiety is a response to an imagined or uncertain one. Fear fades when the threat passes; anxiety has no “passing” because it was never anchored to a here-and-now object.