Sunday Word: Worrywart
worrywart [wur-ee-wawrt, wuhr-]
noun:
a person who tends to worry habitually and often needlessly; pessimist; fussbudget.
Examples:
Theo (aka Turbo, voiced by Ryan Reynolds) is an outcast in the garden: he loves speed much to his brother's embarrassment (Paul Giamatti, who brings his argumentative worrywart character to the mollusk world) (Cathy Dawson March and Bethany March, Film review: Turbo: A 13-year-old’s take on this animated dud, The Globe and Mail, July 2013)
A recent paper, published in the journal Social & Personality Psychology Compass, reveals that being a worrywart might actually be good for your health. (Jordan Rosenfeld, Psychologists have great news for people who worry a lot, Psychology Today, May 2017)
But until now, researchers assumed that vertebrates were the only worrywarts among the world’s diverse life forms. (Rachel Nuwer, Crawfish, Like Humans, Are Anxious Worrywarts , Smithsonian, June 2014)
All the people who laughed off the “worrywarts” years ago for freaking out about the Funny Dancing Robot Dogs (tm) should be forced to watch this video once a day for the remainder of the year. (Kyle Koster, Let's Check In On Those Adorable Robot Dogs and See What They're Up To, The Big Lead, July 2022)
For tips on preparing for the experience, I reached out to experts and to long-haul frequent fliers - and learned that I may be a worrywart. Many of my queries were generally answered with responses that would be applicable to any but the shortest, commuter-hop flights ( Walter Nicklin, He was dreading his 13-hour flight. So he asked experts for some tips., The Washington Post, November 2019)
(click to enlarge)
Origin:
It was originally American and remains widely known there (not only in the deep South), though it has long since migrated to other parts of the world. It's not particularly common in the UK but does turn up from time to time:
Instead of wandering about in a joyful, pregnant haze, I became an obsessive worry wart. I didn't even dare buy baby clothes. Daily Telegraph, 28 Apr. 2014.
The origin, as so often with popular phrases, is a comic strip. In this case, it was the highly popular Out Our Way by J R Williams, which began life in 1922 and ran until 1977. In the early days it often featured a small-town family. One of the boys, aged about eight, was nicknamed Worry Wart by his elder brother. In one early frame, the boy is in bed alongside an open window, his bedclothes and face blackened with soot from nearby factory chimneys. He gets an unsympathetic reaction from his brother:
So somebody told you it was good fer you t'sleep with a winder open, hah? Well answer me this, Worry Wart, without no sarcasticism - does this somebody live in a shop neighborhood? Out Our Way, by J R Williams, in the Canton Daily News (Canton, Ohio), 3 Apr. 1929.
The phrase came into the language at around this time and became quite popular in the 1930s because Williams produced many gently humorous cartoons featuring Worry Wart.
What's intriguing about its early history is that it didn't mean what it does now - somebody who constantly worries about everything and anything. Instead it took its sense from the cartoon - a child who annoys everyone through being a pest or nuisance. An early reference is a story from April 1930 in a Texan newspaper, the Quanah Tribune Chief: 'Elmo Dansby (the school worry wart) informed us that he was going to get him a girl and have a big time.' He doesn't sound like a worrier. An odd enquiry a little later in the decade (presumably a humorous squib and not a genuine question) shows the meaning well:
Dear Pat and Mike: I am a young squirt in the Sophomore class. I have many bad habits such as trying to act smart, pestering the teachers, am the biggest worry wart in school and think I am very cute. Tell me a way to overcome these bad habits. - Worry Wart.
Dear Worry Wart: When you find out what people think of you, you will automatically drop them. Lockhart Post-Register (Texas), 8 Nov. 1934.
This meaning was still the usual one when the phrase began to appear in Australia after the Second World War, but by the 1950s it was being used there in the way we do now. It took some years more for the meaning to change over completely in the US. By the time it reached us here in the UK it had only the current sense.
So where does it come from? There has long been a belief that warts are caused by worry and stress, which presumably accounts for the current meaning. And the original sense may have been provoked through the idea that warts are often an itchy nuisance. They invite one to scratch and worry at them, which only makes things worse. (World Wide Words)