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fearthought. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
fearthought, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
fearthought in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
Blend of fear + forethought. Coined by Horace Fletcher as part of New Thought Movement at the turn of the twentieth century.
Noun
fearthought (uncountable)
- Excessive and unhealthy apprehensiveness; unnecessary fearfulness.
- 1897, Horace Fletcher, Happiness as found in Forethought minus Fearthought (Chicago & New York: Stone), pp. 24–25:
- To assist in the analysis of fear, and in the denunciation of its expressions, I have coined the word fearthought to stand for the unprofitable element of forethought, and have defined the word 'worry' as fearthought in contradistinction to forethought. I have also defined fearthought as the self-imposed or self-permitted suggestion of inferiority, in order to place it where it really belongs, in the category of harmful, unnecessary, and therefore not respectable things.
1902, William James, “Lectures 4 & 5”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature , New York, N.Y.; London: Longmans, Green, and Co. , →OCLC:The “misery-habit,” the “martyr-habit,” engendered by the prevalent “fearthought,” get pungent criticism from the mind-cure writers ...