We explain what anxiety is, its literal and metaphorical meaning and the origin of the term. Also, synonyms, antonyms and usage in sentences.
What is anxiety?
Zozobra is the name we give in Spanish to a feeling of restlessness, restlessness or distress which may be due to an unpleasant situation that one is suffering or that could be suffered in the immediate future. It would become a synonym for anguish.
However, this use of the word is actually metaphorical, as the term capsize is in common use in maritime speech: This is what happens to a boat that wobbles and capsizes that is, it turns “upside down”, generally due to the effect of very intense waves and winds.
Boats that capsize usually sink, as they flood and lose buoyancy, so by “capsizing” we mean that we feel like a boat that is tilted, unstable, about to capsize.
Distress comes from Latin voices subtus“under”, and super“above” or “above”, but the term comes to Spanish as an inheritance from Catalan sotabout, sparewith the same meaning. It is a word that we associate with nervousness, with the feeling of imminent failure, and that is widely used in literary language. In fact, it is the title of a famous collection of poems by the Mexican modernist Ramón López Velarde (1888-1921).
On the contrary, It is not usually used in common language although in American Spanish, given its important maritime heritage, it tends to occur more frequently. We have already seen some of its synonyms, so the antonyms of anxiety would be stillness, tranquility, gentleness or calm.
Examples of sentences with “zozobra”
Below are some examples of sentences with this word:
- “Tomorrow I have an exam, tonight I'm not going to sleep because of so much anxiety ”.
- “Whenever something bad happens to me, my mother first gets a anxiety inexplicable”.
- “Preyed by an intense anxiety our hero decided to walk through the meadow.”
- “When the ship began to capsize the captain was already floating in the water.”
Continue with: Negligence
References
- “Capsize” on Wikipedia.
- “Zozobra” in the Dictionary of the language of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “Capsize” in Wiktionary.
- “Etymology of Zozobrar” in Etymologies of Chile.net.
