Meanings
nounworried well pl (plural only)
- pluralplural onlymedicineUsers of medical or psychiatric services who are not suffering from any diagnosable disease.
"In cities with a high and more visible number of men becoming sick and dying from AIDS, the worried well report panic attacks, somatic preoccupations, and difficulty functioning on the job because of obsessional worrying about the syndrome."
1987, Kathy J. Harowski, “The Worried Well: Maximizing Coping in the Face of AIDS”, in Psychotherapy With Homosexual Men and Women, →ISBN, page 302
Origin
Coined in 1970 by Sidney Garfield, founder of Kaiser Permanente.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
APA
worried well. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/worried%20well
MLA
“worried well.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/worried%20well. Accessed November 4, 2026.
Chicago
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “worried well,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/worried%20well.
Source: worried well on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.