Malcolm Boyd
Did you know?
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
MSNBC Newsweek, 27 Nov. 2025
Increasing political polarization, the ubiquity of screens, the COVID-19 pandemic — all have contributed to a malaise and neuroticism around the practice of conversation.
—Lamorna Ash, The Dial, 25 Nov. 2025
And yet, not talking or negotiating leaves Iran with its current economic malaise and the predicament of no real deterrent against military attack.
—Big Think, 25 Nov. 2025
A feeling of general malaise can set in.
—Helen Carefoot, Flow Space, 25 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for malaise
Cite this Entry
“Malaise.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malaise. Accessed 3 Dec. 2025.
Copy Citation
Share