WORRY • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Worry

Translators

Dictionaries

Courses

Other

Home

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/wˈəri/ Listen

verb

Worry v. t. (past & past part. worried; pres. part. worrying)

To harass by pursuit and barking; to attack repeatedly; also, to tear or mangle with the teeth. "A hellhound that doth hunt us all to death; That dog that had his teeth before his eyes, To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood."

To harass or beset with importunity, or with care an anxiety; to vex; to annoy; to torment; to tease; to fret; to trouble; to plague. "A church worried with reformation." "Let them rail, And worry one another at their pleasure." "Worry him out till he gives consent."

To harass with labor; to fatigue. (Colloq.)

Worry v. i. To feel or express undue care and anxiety; to manifest disquietude or pain; to be fretful; to chafe; as, the child worries; the horse worries.

noun

Worry n. (pl. worries) A state of undue solicitude; a state of disturbance from care and anxiety; vexation; anxiety; fret; as, to be in a worry. "The whir and worry of spindle and of loom."

See images of 'Worry'

Etymology of 'Worry'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Worry" Quotes from Famous Books

... I am—heaven help me!" Nick broke out, tossing his hat down on his little tin table with vehemence. "I'm a freak of nature and a sport of the mocking gods. Why should they go out of their way to worry me? Why should they do everything so inconsequent, so improbable, so preposterous? It's the vulgarest practical joke. There has never been anything of the sort among us; we're all Philistines to the core, with about as much esthetic sense as that hat. It's excellent soil—I don't complain of it—but ...

— The Tragic Muse • Henry James

... he avoids and fears that satiety which lies in ambush for every narrative, and takes the hearer from one subject to another, and relieves by novelty the possibility of being surfeited. But the talkative worry one's ears to death with their tautologies, as people scribble the same things over and over again ...

— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... northern lands," he observed. "This creature is a peccary; and though it is of no great size, it is one of the most savage little animals in existence. A herd of them will run down a jaguar; and though he may slay a few with his paws, they will soon worry him to death with their sharp tusks, having nothing like fear in their composition. We will take the precaution of securing it before we haul it out, or it will be sure to do some ...

— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... you, were to worry or kill the cat, for instance, then the cat would be called THE VICTIM OF YOUR CRUELTY; and in the same manner the eight little Victims I am going to tell you about were the victims of the whims and cruel prejudices of those who had the charge ...

— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty

... through his mind. That deep intellect, so given to analyze, meditate, generalize, from childhood upward, according to the relative capacity of age, was ever busy with the great problems of life. It has been seen that he began to worry even his nurses with childish questions, and afterward much more to embarrass his tutors, masters etc., and especially the excellent Dr. Glenny at Dulwich. A natural tendency fortified by early religious ...

— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

More quotes...