worry
/ˈwʌ.ɹi/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.84 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "So you go along for a long time / And nothing seems to worry your mind / But what it adds up to / It's the side effect / That finally gets to you"
- "Your tone of voice worries me."
- "That worries the government, which fears that environmental activism could become the foundation for more general political opposition."
- "The President was worried into military action by persistent advisors."
- "Your dog’s been worrying sheep again."
- "This is the Dog, that worried the Cat, that killed the Rat, that ate the Malt, that lay in the Houſe that Jack built."
Etymology
From Middle English worien (“to choke, strangle”), from Old English wyrġan, from Proto-West Germanic *wurgijan, from Proto-Germanic *wurgijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *werǵʰ- (“bind, squeeze”). Cognate with Dutch worgen, wurgen, German würgen. Compare Latin urgere (“to press, push”), Sanskrit वृहति (vṛhati, “to tear out, pluck”), Lithuanian ver̃žti (“to string; squeeze”), Russian (poetic) отверза́ть (otverzátʹ, “to open”, literally “to untie”). Related to wring.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: worien, wyrġan, *wurgijan, *wurgijaną, *werǵʰ-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈwʌ.ɹi/
- British English: /ˈwʌ.ɹi/