I have wondered how the word "anxious," besides meaning uneasy or worrisome, came to mean to be excited or desirous for something. The online OED gives this as the etymology of the word: "[f. L. anxi-us troubled in mind (f. ang-re to choke, distress) + -OUS.]," which gives no hint of that second definition, to me anyway. Any ideas?
Don't you sometimes get a lump in the throat or "butterflies in the stomach" in anticipation of a good thing? I do! The transferrence seems natural to me.
Usage Note: Anxious has a long history of use roughly as a synonym for eager, but many prefer that anxious be used only when its subject is worried or uneasy about the anticipated event. In the traditional view, one may say We are anxious to see the strike settled soon but not We are anxious to see the new show of British sculpture at the museum. Fifty-two percent of the Usage Panel rejects anxious in the latter sentence. But general adoption of anxious to mean “eager” is understandable, at least in colloquial discourse, since it provides a means of adding emotional urgency to an assertion. It implies that the subject so strongly desires a certain outcome that frustration of that desire will lead to unhappiness. In this way, it resembles the informal adjective dying in sentences such as I'm dying to see your new baby.
That's what I get for looking in the OED, and not the AHD! Thanks, Tinman. It's a good explanation, though I am surprised at 52% of those Usage Panel members. Let's face it, most people do use "anxious" that way. They must be quite curmudgeonly!
In Bierma's language column today, he talks about the origin of "anxious" to mean "eager." The OED quotes Scottish poet Robert Blair who wrote about "the gentle heard, anxious to please," in 1742. Bierma quotes the American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style as saying, "People have been using 'anxious' as a synonym for 'eager' for 250 years, and for over 100 years language critics have been objecting to it." They add that those who use "anxious" to mean "eager" can justify the usage on the grounds that it adds emotional urgency to an assertion.
So...take that, AHD Usage Panel!
Interestingly, says Bierma, that while "anxious" has evolved to mean "eager," "anxiety" hasn't evolved to mean "eagerness."
