worry [OE] In Old English worry was ‘to strangle’. The Middle Ages saw the meanings ‘to choke with a mouthful of food’, ‘to seize by the throat and tear’, and ‘to swallow greedily’, and in the 16th century ‘to harass’. This gave rise to ‘to annoy or disturb’ in the late 17th century, and then ‘to cause anxiety to’. The sense ‘to feel anxious or troubled’ (he worried about his son) is not recorded until the 1860s, and was initially regarded as a rather informal use.