malaise
[ma-leyz, -muh-; French ma-lez]
- a condition of general bodily weakness or discomfort, often marking the onset of a disease.
- a vague or unfocused feeling of mental uneasiness, lethargy, or discomfort.
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Origin of malaise
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for malaise
Contemporary Examples
It is a nostalgic, old-fashioned novel that nevertheless reflects the malaise of its era and prefigures our own technophiliac age.
Zen, Motorcycles, And The Cult of Tech: How Robert Pirsig’s Classic Anticipated the FutureNathaniel Rich
August 31, 2014
Moral equivalence and malaise, rather than red-hot ideology, motivates Haydon.
Iran’s Top Spy Is the Modern-Day Karla, John Le Carré’s Villainous MastermindMichael Weiss
July 2, 2014
To combat the malaise, fast food joints are pursuing a high-low strategy, or, as I prefer to dub it, the “Moms and Bros” strategy.
Burger King Introduces Big King to Taunt McDonald’s and Stagnating Overall SalesDaniel Gross
November 6, 2013
Let us refuse to let this day of dying fade into memory and the malaise of resignation to things as they are.
Romney's malaise, likely, is the result if an uninspiring vision and a shaky economic message.
Historical Examples
An incident showed me that his malaise was curable by one method only.
William Sharp (Fiona Macleod)Elizabeth A. Sharp
They swear by their malaise and by their malaise they shall die.
After the RainSam Vaknin
For me I am within a month of the period immune, and only feel a malaise in her company.
The Shoes of FortuneNeil Munro
These signs are accompanied by fever, malaise, and depression of spirits.
Fever is slight or absent; there are malaise and loss of strength.
malaise
- a feeling of unease or depression
- a mild sickness, not symptomatic of any disease or ailment
- a complex of problems affecting a country, economy, etcBulgaria's economic malaise
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Word Origin
C18: from Old French, from mal bad + aise ease
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for malaise
n.
c.1300, maleise "pain, suffering; sorrow, anxiety," also, by late 14c., "disease, sickness," from Old French malaise "difficulty, suffering, hardship," literally "ill-ease," from mal "bad" (see mal-) + aise "ease" (see ease (n.)). The current use is perhaps a mid-18c. reborrowing from Modern French. A Middle English verbal form, malasen "to trouble, distress" (mid-15c.), from Old French malaisier, did not endure.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
malaise
(mă-lāz′, -lĕz′)- A vague feeling of bodily discomfort, as at the beginning of an illness.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.