Malcolm Boyd
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A recipe: combine a handful of the blahs, a pinch of the blues, and maybe a soupçon of ennui, season generously with “under the weather,” and voila, you’ve got yourself the stew of sinking sensations known as malaise. Malaise, whose Old French ancestor was formed from the combination of mal (“bad”) and aise (“comfort”), has been a part of English since the mid-18th century. It originally referred to a vague feeling of weakness or discomfort accompanying the onset of an illness—a meaning still in use today when a virus or other malady starts producing symptoms—but has since broadened to cover a general, ominous sense of mental or moral ill-being.
Examples of malaise in a Sentence
Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 4 Oct. 2024
His abstention kicked off a malaise that culminated in a determination to kill himself in his Connecticut farmhouse, ending only with his subsequent hospitalization and recovery.
—Chelsea Leu, The Atlantic, 5 Sep. 2024
Over the past four decades, Chile has made a disorienting journey from state of terror to hopeful democracy to queasy malaise.
—Carolina A. Miranda, The Atlantic, 18 Oct. 2024
He was struck by the way the film depicted post-college malaise and melancholy and the awkwardness of meeting new people.
—Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 17 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Malaise.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malaise. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
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