free-floating anxiety

British  

noun

1. psychiatry chronic anxiety occurring for no identifiable cause

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Example Sentences

For millions of Americans, the Covid-19 emergency, that disorienting stretch of lockdowns, mandates, free-floating anxiety and exhaustion came to a muted end sometime during the past couple of years, brought about by vaccines and antiviral drugs.

From New York Times

“In comparison, even though generalized anxiety can exist for people with PTSD, their worries and hyper vigilance is usually confined to or derived from a particular event. Think of it as the difference between free-floating anxiety that isn’t attached to an event versus anxiety caused by an event or series of events that have already been experienced.”

From Seattle Times

Outfitted by costume designer Jane Greenwood in a mother-of-the-bride dress so redolent of springtime it might have to be mulched, Parker bounces around the room, filling it with free-floating anxiety.

From Washington Post

“When you have a society that has become decoupled from each other and has free-floating anxiety in a sense that things don’t make sense, we can’t understand it, and then their attention gets focused by a leader or a series of events on one small point, just like hypnosis, they literally become hypnotized and can be led anywhere,” Malone said.

From Seattle Times

Arriving smack in the middle of all this free-floating anxiety of authorship is Jean Hanff Korelitz’s new novel, “The Plot,” a witty nightmare of a thriller about the dangerous consequences of sticky fingers in the literary world.

From Washington Post