1625: worry May 27, 2019

Since emotions naturally have physiological responses to them, many words have some relation across both. Just like, 'clam (up)', 'choke (up)', and 'verklempt' the pressure and muscular tension that one feel when emotional translates into the language too. In the case of 'worry', the approach is a bit more historical, but the effect is the same, as in Old English, 'wyrgan', meant 'to strangle'. A worried person might feel strangled, but actually the word only started applying to emotions in the Middle English period when the word came to mean 'tear at the throat' and then less harshly 'harass'. In fact, 'worry' could only be used as a verb, and therefore in the context of 'worrying someone' until the 19th century, and the word is still used to describe dogs and other animals gnawing and chewing.