anxious

comparative more anxious · comparative anxiouser · superlative most anxious · superlative anxiousest · alternative obsolete anctious

1. Nervous and worried.

   Synonyms: uneasy, worrisome, unquiet, concerned, fraught

2. Having a feeling of anxiety or disquietude; extremely concerned, especially about something that will happen in the future or that is unknown.

   She was anxious to hear how her test results were.

   4 more examples

   I could tell she was anxious as she was biting her nails.

   Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.

   1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0056

   Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him.

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

   But, with United fans in celebratory mood as it appeared their team might snatch glory, they faced an anxious wait as City equalised in stoppage time.

   2012 May 13, Alistair Magowan, “Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd”, in BBC Sport

   Synonyms: angstful, disturbed, restless, solicitous, worrisome

3. Accompanied with, or causing, anxiety; worrying.

   anxious labor

   2 more examples

   There was an anxious wait before the results were revealed.

   The sweet of life, from which God hath bid dwell far off all anxious cares.

   1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   Synonyms: restless, uneasy, worrisome, unquiet, nerve-wracking

4. Earnestly desirous.

   He is anxious to please, so you can count on him.

   2 more examples

   All the voters were anxious to hear the election result.

   He sneers alike at those who are anxious to preserve and at those who are eager for reform.

   1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter II, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC

   Synonyms: restless, solicitous