anxiety

Borrowed from Latin ānxietās, from ānxius ("anxious, solicitous, distressed, troubled"), itself from the verb angō, "to distress, trouble." Angō is akin to Ancient Greek ἄγχω (ánkhō), meaning "to choke."

The word entered English as a direct borrowing from Latin ānxietās, carrying forward the sense of distress already built into ānxius — no major shift in meaning is recorded beyond that inheritance.

It shares roots with anxious, formed from the same Latin base plus the suffix -ety, and is also connected to anger and angst, all tracing back to that same idea of choking distress.