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Worried

Mood
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A mood reflecting anxious preoccupation with potential dangers, uncertainties, or unresolved concerns.

Detailed Definition
Worried mood in poetry conveys fretful anticipation through fragmented rhythm, cautious diction, and uncertain imagery; it appears in parental lyrics, wartime verse, or health poems—like Plath or Larkin—where the speaker’s mind circles possible disasters, using linguistic hesitation to mirror the exhausting loop of anxiety and the human need to prepare for unseen threats.
Example
Example in poetry:
In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” the speaker is worried about aging and judgment; In “The Raven,” Poe’s speaker worries about eternal separation from Lenore; Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” expresses worried trauma through violent metaphors; Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” conveys worried mental collapse; In “The Second Coming,” Yeats’ apocalyptic vision worries with chaos; In “Howl,” Ginsberg’s societal collapse worries with frantic energy.
Additional Notes
Worried mood expresses active concern or fear about specific outcomes; conveyed through repetitive phrasing, narrow focus, and anxious imagery—e.g., parental or wartime verse; overlaps with anxious, apprehensive, and uneasy moods; more concrete than generalized dread.
Also Known As
Anxious Concerned Apprehensive Nervous Distressed Uneasy
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