Quote:


"Malaise". I recall this meaning something like, "an uneasy, ill-defined feeling, especially due to incipient illness." Today most dictionaries define it as simply "a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify" with no mention of incipient illness, which is sad, I think, because it adds such a potent touch of hypochondria to the word.



I think the word has been use metaphorically so often lately that limiting its cause to incipient illness in a dictionary, except perhaps in a secondary definition, would be a disservice to the reader.