worrit

English

Etymology

Dialectal alteration of worry, 19th c.

Noun

worrit (countable and uncountable, plural worrits)

1. (dialect, nonstandard) Worry; anxiety.
   • 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 15:

     "Where have you been, you young monkey?" said Mrs. Joe, stamping her foot. "Tell me directly what you’ve been doing to wear me away with fret and fright and worrit, or I’d have you out of that corner if you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys."

   • 1891, Margaret Oliphant, The Heir Presumptive and the Heir Apparent, published 2009, page 113:

     Them hunting and fishing things, if it was nothing else, puts Mr. Saunders and John in a continual worrit, special when there's gentlemen coming that don't bring a vally — and half the gentlemen here don't.

2. (dialect, nonstandard) One who worries excessively or unnecessarily.

Verb

worrit (third-person singular simple present worrits, present participle worriting, simple past and past participle worrited or worrit)

1. (dialect, nonstandard, intransitive) To worry; to be anxious.
   • 1873–1884 (date written), Samuel Butler, edited by R[ichard] A[lexander] Streatfeild, The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, published 1903, →OCLC:

     Well Sir, would you believe it, there’s that in Mr Pontifex’s face which is just like young Watkins; he looks that worrited and scrunched up at times, but it’s never for the same reason, […]

   • 1954 July 29, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published September 1973, →ISBN:

     I'd best be turning for home. Mrs. Maggot will be worriting with the night getting thick.

2. (dialect, nonstandard, transitive) To worry (someone); to cause to be anxious.
   • 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter XXVI, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC, page 271:

     “Yes; don't worrit your poor mother,” said Mrs. Sanders. “She's quite enough to worrit her, as it is, without you, Tommy,” said Mrs. Cluppins, with sympathising resignation.

   • 1940, Hammond Innes, The Trojan Horse, published 2012, unnumbered page:

     'Och, it's you, is it, Mr Kilmartin? Wherever have ye been? The young lady was fair worrit to death when ye didna come home.'

   • 2010, Amanda Forester, The Highlander's Sword, page 169:

     I dinna wish to worrit myself about ye running off to the nunnery or wi' another man.

Derived terms

• worriter

Adjective

worrit (comparative more worrit, superlative most worrit)

1. (dialect, nonstandard) Worried.
   • 1906, Robert Love Taylor, John Trotwood Moore, Thornwell Jacobs, editors, The Taylor-Trotwood Magazine, volumes 3-4, page 641:

     An' every day Chinook Bill got more an' more worrit an' turrible reticent.

   • 1926, Marshall Newton Goold, Heather Heretics, page 204:

     'She's gey sickly, but more worrit that she should be sick at all than by whatever it is itself.'

   • 2010, Mercedes Lackey, Intrigues, published 2012, unnumbered page:

     “I don' think Dallen'd let me break m'neck,” Mags pointed out. “I'd be more worrit about them as is on foot or reg'lar horses.”