worries

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of worry.

   Financial worries weighed on the family throughout the winter.

   She listed her worries one by one before deciding what to do.

   Note

   The plural belongs to the countable uses of worry. Each worry is a separate trouble or a person who causes one, so financial worries are several particular concerns, not one mood. The feeling itself, taken as uncountable, has no plural: you feel worry, or a great deal of worry. The y-to-ies spelling is shared with the present-tense verb, as in she worries about her worries.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of worry.

   He worries that the project will fall behind schedule.

   The coach worries about injuries before every big match.

   Note

   One spelling carries the verb in both directions. Intransitively the subject does the fretting: he worries about money, she worries that the rent is late. Transitively the subject causes it: the silence worries her. The physical senses survive too. A dog worries a bone, and a nervous hand worries a loose thread. The object tells you whether the trouble is in the mind or in the hands.

   The long silence worries her more than any argument.

   The terrier worries the old bone until nothing is left of it.

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