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 𐬄𐬰𐬀𐬵 (ązah, “strangulation; distress”), 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”. 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.

noun

1. A strong feeling of displeasure, hostility, or antagonism towards someone or something, usually combined with an urge to harm, often stemming from perceived provocation, hurt, or threat.
   You need to control your anger.
   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. 2013-06-28, Joris Luyendijk, “Our banks are out of control”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 3, page 21
2. (obsolete) Pain or stinging.
   It heals the Wounds that Sin hath made; and takes away the Anger of the Sore; […] 1660, Simon Patrick, Mensa mystica, published 1717, page 322

verb

1. (transitive) To cause such a feeling of antagonism in.
   He who angers you conquers you.
   Poetling, fret thyself not! / I will not one tittle imperil / Thy sorry cockboat; / Nor yet thy poor dear life will I harass / With over-hazardous tossings. / For thou, little poet, ne’er angeredst me; / Thou hast me no least little pinnacle harmed / Of Priamus’ sacrosanct stronghold; / Nor even the least little lash hast thou singed / Of the eye of my son Polyphemus; / And thee with her counsels protected hath ne’er / The Goddess of Wisdom, Pallas Athené. 1911, Heinrich Heine, translated by John Payne, The Poetical Works of Heinrich Heine: Now First Completely Rendered into English Verse, in Accordance with the Original Forms, volume one, Villon Society, page 176
2. (intransitive) To become angry.
   (see angry for more)
   You anger too easily.