These words are used in relation to interested, concerned or troubled states of mind. Worry and care both express wide range of emotional involvement. One may be said to worry then the feeling described is as mild as uneasiness: Don’t worry if you’re late for the meeting. On the other hand, worry is frequently used to convey a sense of deep anxiety: I’m worried sick about her driving the car tonight on the wet roads. Care , in a way that worry can not, denotes a purely objective interest: it is impossible that a man who is otherwise so involved with contemporary problems should not care at all about the civil liberates issue. It can designate sorrow: to care about a friend’s being out of work. Finally, it can indicate serious concern or anxiety: It was obvious from the press conference that the Prime Minister cares deeply about the possibility of worsened relations between East and West.

Brood and agonize , like care and worry , denote a concern about some person or thing, but, more than the other two words, they imply a thoughtful and sometimes morbid dwelling on the object of concern, often to the point of moodiness or depression. Agonize is quite colloquial and carries some criticism of the person doing the worrying: She brooded so long on her mother’s illness that she sank into a state of melancholia; He broods continuously about the wrongs he claims were inflicted on him by his late employer; Why agonize so much about having to reprimand the typist?; agonizing over examination results. Fret , like brood , suggests a lingering state of mind, with the governing emotion being that of anxiety, grief or unhappiness: Since her husband’s death, she has done nothing but fret . Often, with this word, there is a suggestion of whining and complaining that is not present in brood , but is present to some extent in agonize ; I pity his hypochondria, but I pity more the poor wife who has to put up with his continual fretting (or agonizing ).