Synonyms:
| anguish, | disquiet, | foreboding, | perplexity, |
| apprehension, | disturbance, | fretfulness, | solicitude, |
| care, | dread, | fretting, | trouble, |
| concern, | fear, | misgiving, | worry. |
Anxiety is, according to its derivation, a choking disquiet, akin to anguish; anxiety is mental; anguish may be mental or physical; anguish is in regard to the known, anxiety in regard to the unknown; anguish is because of what has happened, anxiety because of what may happen. Anxiety refers to some future event, always suggesting hopeful possibility, and thus differing from apprehension, fear, dread, foreboding, terror, all of which may be quite despairing. In matters within our reach, anxiety always stirs the question whether something can not be done, and is thus a valuable spur to doing; in this respect it is allied to care. Foreboding, dread, etc., commonly incapacitate for all helpful thought or endeavor. Worry is a more petty, restless, and manifest anxiety; anxiety may be quiet and silent; worry is communicated to all around. Solicitude is a milder anxiety. Fretting or fretfulness is a weak complaining without thought of accomplishing or changing anything, but merely as a relief to one's own disquiet. Perplexity often involves anxiety, but may be quite free from it.[50] A student may be perplexed regarding a translation, yet, if he has time enough, not at all anxious regarding it.
Antonyms:
| apathy, | calmness, | confidence, | light-heartedness, | satisfaction, |
| assurance, | carelessness, | ease, | nonchalance, | tranquillity. |
Prepositions:
Anxiety for a friend's return; anxiety about, in regard to, or concerning the future.
APATHY.
Synonyms:
| calmness, | indifference, | quietness, | stoicism, |
| composure, | insensibility, | quietude, | tranquillity, |
| immobility, | lethargy, | sluggishness, | unconcern, |
| impassibility, | phlegm, | stillness, | unfeelingness. |
Apathy, according to its Greek derivation, is a simple absence of feeling or emotion. There are persons to whom a certain degree of apathy is natural, an innate sluggishness of the emotional nature. In the apathy of despair, a person gives up, without resistance or sensibility, to what he has fiercely struggled to avoid. While apathy is want of feeling, calmness is feeling without agitation. Calmness is the result of strength, courage, or trust; apathy is the result of dulness or weakness. Composure is freedom from agitation or disturbance, resulting ordinarily from force of will, or from perfect confidence in one's own resources. Impassibility is a philosophical term applied to the Deity, as infinitely exalted above all stir of passion or emotion. Unfeelingness, the Saxon word that should be the exact equivalent of apathy, really means more, a lack of the feeling one ought to have, a censurable hardness of heart. Indifference and insensibility designate the absence of feeling toward certain persons or things; apathy, entire absence of feeling. Indifference is a want of interest; insensibility is a want of feeling; unconcern has reference to consequences. We speak of insensibility of heart, immobility of countenance. Stoicism is an intentional suppression of feeling and deadening of sensibilities, while apathy is involuntary. Compare CALM; REST; STUPOR.
Antonyms:
| agitation, | disturbance, | feeling, | sensibility, | sympathy, |
| alarm, | eagerness, | frenzy, | sensitiveness, | turbulence, |
| anxiety, | emotion, | fury, | storm, | vehemence, |
| care, | excitement, | passion, | susceptibility, | violence. |
| distress, | ||||
Prepositions:
The apathy of monastic life; apathy toward good.
[51]
APIECE.
Synonyms:
| distributively, | each, | individually, | separately, | severally. |
There is no discernible difference in sense between so much apiece and so much each; the former is the more common and popular, the latter the more elegant expression. Distributively is generally used of numbers and abstract relations. Individually emphasizes the independence of the individuals; separately and severally still more emphatically hold them apart. The signers of a note may become jointly and severally responsible, that is, each liable for the entire amount, as if he had signed