Fear
Etymology
From Old English "fǣr," which meant not the feeling but “sudden danger, calamity, ambush.” The word originally named the external peril; only later did it migrate to the internal response to it. To feel fear was once, more literally, to encounter a fear.
noun · /FEER/
The alarm you feel in the presence of a specific, identifiable danger.
What it names
Reach for it when the threat has an object — a dog, a deadline, a diagnosis — that you can point to.
Example
Her fear of the exam vanished the moment she turned the paper over and recognized the questions.
Related idea
The clinically vital split from anxiety: fear has an object and is proportionate and time-bound (the bear is here); anxiety is diffuse, future-facing, and often objectless (something, somewhere, might go wrong). Fear spikes and resolves; anxiety hums.