Qualms

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A feeling of unease or anxiety about whether something is right or appropriate
2. a sense of doubt regarding the moral implications of an action
3. a moment of hesitation or apprehension that disrupts confidence or conviction

Etymology: The most striking thing about "qualms" is that its earliest English sense was not doubt at all but death. Old English "cwealm" meant "death, disaster, plague," and the word survived into Middle English as "qualm" with a sense of sickness or pestilence. Its connection to the modern idea of moral unease is far from obvious, and the path between the two is not fully settled. The main theory links the word to the Proto-Indo-European root "*gʷelH-," meaning "to stick, pierce; pain, injury, death," which also gave English "quell." On this view, the modern sense developed gradually from physical harm to a general feeling of distress. The difficulty is that no recorded uses show the intermediate steps. The word first appears in the sense "pang of apprehension" only in the 16th century. A rival theory connects the word to Dutch "kwalm" or German "Qualm," meaning "steam, vapor, mist," and to the idea of being dazed or stupefied. English records show the word meaning a sudden feeling of faintness by 1530, uneasiness or doubt by 1553, and a scruple of conscience by 1649. That final sense is the one that matches "qualms" today.

Synonyms: doubts, misgivings, hesitations, reservations

Antonyms: confidence, certainty, assurance