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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

anger.

A strong and unpleasant feeling of displeasure, hostility, or antagonism, usually combined with an urge to yell, curse, damage or destroy things, or harm living beings, often stemming from perceived provocation, hurt, threat, insults, unfair or unjust treatment, or an undesired situation.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈæŋɡə/Received-Pronunciation[ˈæŋɡə] ~ [ˈaŋɡə]Received-Pronunciation/ˈaŋɡə/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales[ˈaŋɡə]British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales

  1. A strong and unpleasant feeling of displeasure, hostility, or antagonism, usually combined with an urge to yell, curse, damage or destroy things, or harm living beings, often stemming from perceived provocation, hurt, threat, insults, unfair or unjust treatment, or an undesired situation.

    countable · uncountable
    vent one's anger
    relieve one's anger

  2. Pain or stinging.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English anger (“grief, pain, trouble, affliction, vexation, sorrow, wrath”), from Old Norse angr, ǫngr (“affliction, sorrow”) (compare Old Norse ang, ǫng (“troubled”)), from Proto-Germanic *angazaz (“grief, sorrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ- (“narrow, tied together”). Cognate with Danish anger (“regret, remorse”), Norwegian Bokmål anger (“regret, remorse”), Swedish ånger (“regret”), Icelandic angur (“trouble”), Old English ange, enge (“narrow, close, straitened, constrained, confined, vexed, troubled, sorrowful, anxious, oppressive, severe, painful, cruel”), German Angst (“anxiety, anguish, fear”), Latin angō (“squeeze, choke, vex”), angor (“strangulation; anguish, torment”) (whence the English doublet angor), Albanian ang (“fear, anxiety, pain, nightmare”), Avestan 𐬄𐬰𐬀𐬵 (ązah, “strangulation; distress”), Ancient Greek ἄγχω (ánkhō, “to squeeze, strangle”), Sanskrit अंहस् (aṃhas), अंहु (aṃhu, “anxiety, distress, affliction”, literally “narrowness”). Also compare with English anguish, anxious, quinsy, and perhaps to awe and ugly. The word seems to have originally meant “to choke, squeeze”. The verb is from Middle English angren, angeren, from Old Norse angra. Compare with Icelandic angra, Norwegian Nynorsk angra, Norwegian Bokmål angre, Swedish ångra, Danish angre.

verb/ˈæŋɡə/Received-Pronunciation[ˈæŋɡə] ~ [ˈaŋɡə]Received-Pronunciation/ˈaŋɡə/British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales[ˈaŋɡə]British, Northern-England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales

  1. To cause such a feeling of antagonism in.

    transitive
    He who angers you conquers you.

  2. To become angry.

    intransitive
    You anger too easily.
Where this word comes from

From Middle English anger (“grief, pain, trouble, affliction, vexation, sorrow, wrath”), from Old Norse angr, ǫngr (“affliction, sorrow”) (compare Old Norse ang, ǫng (“troubled”)), from Proto-Germanic *angazaz (“grief, sorrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ- (“narrow, tied together”). Cognate with Danish anger (“regret, remorse”), Norwegian Bokmål anger (“regret, remorse”), Swedish ånger (“regret”), Icelandic angur (“trouble”), Old English ange, enge (“narrow, close, straitened, constrained, confined, vexed, troubled, sorrowful, anxious, oppressive, severe, painful, cruel”), German Angst (“anxiety, anguish, fear”), Latin angō (“squeeze, choke, vex”), angor (“strangulation; anguish, torment”) (whence the English doublet angor), Albanian ang (“fear, anxiety, pain, nightmare”), Avestan 𐬄𐬰𐬀𐬵 (ązah, “strangulation; distress”), Ancient Greek ἄγχω (ánkhō, “to squeeze, strangle”), Sanskrit अंहस् (aṃhas), अंहु (aṃhu, “anxiety, distress, affliction”, literally “narrowness”). Also compare with English anguish, anxious, quinsy, and perhaps to awe and ugly. The word seems to have originally meant “to choke, squeeze”. The verb is from Middle English angren, angeren, from Old Norse angra. Compare with Icelandic angra, Norwegian Nynorsk angra, Norwegian Bokmål angre, Swedish ångra, Danish angre.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.