anger

Etymology

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”), Albanian ang (“fear, anxiety, pain, nightmare”), Avestan angra (angra, “destructive”), Ancient Greek ἄγχω (ánkhō, “I squeeze, strangle”), Sanskrit अंहु (aṃhu, “anxiety, distress”). Also compare with English anguish, anxious, quinsy, and perhaps to awe and ugly. The word seems to have originally meant “to choke, squeeze”.^[1]

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.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈæŋɡə(ɹ)/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈæŋɡɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æŋɡə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: an‧ger

Noun

anger (countable and uncountable, plural angers)

1. A strong feeling of displeasure, hostility or antagonism towards someone or something, usually combined with an urge to harm.
   • 2013 June 28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21:

     Seeing the British establishment struggle with the financial sector is like watching an alcoholic […].  Until 2008 there was denial over what finance had become. When a series of bank failures made this impossible, there was widespread anger, leading to the public humiliation of symbolic figures.

   You need to control your anger.

2. (obsolete) Pain or stinging.
   • 1660, Simon Patrick, Mensa mystica, published 1717, page 322:

     It heals the Wounds that Sin hath made; and takes away the Anger of the Sore; […]

   • Temple

     I made the experiment, setting the moxa where […] the greatest anger and soreness still continued.

Verb

anger (third-person singular simple present angers, present participle angering, simple past and past participle angered)

1. (transitive) To cause such a feeling of antagonism.

   He who angers you conquers you.

2. (intransitive) To become angry.

   You anger too easily.

References

• anger in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
• Notes:

Anagrams

• Agner, Negar, Regan, areng, grane, range, rangé, regna, renga

Noun

anger m

1. anger (strong feeling of displeasure)

Etymology

From Old Norse angr.

Noun

anger m (definite singular angeren) (uncountable)

1. regret, remorse, contrition, repentance, penitence

References

• “anger” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Etymology

From Old Norse angr.

Noun

anger m (definite singular angeren) (uncountable)

1. regret, remorse, contrition, repentance, penitence

References

• “anger” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Verb

anger

1. present tense of ange.