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1 Definition
A general feeling of discomfort, unease, or mild illness whose exact cause is difficult to identify or explain.
2 In Use
A quiet malaise settled over the office after the layoffs, even among the people whose jobs were safe.
3 Word Origin
mal Fr. · bad → aise Fr. · ease → malaise 18th c. English
Malaise entered English in the eighteenth century straight from French, where it had long combined mal, meaning bad or ill, with aise, meaning ease or comfort. Put together, the compound literally meant a state of bad ease, a fitting way to describe discomfort that resists clear diagnosis. English borrowed the word largely intact, using it first for physical unwellness before it drifted into broader psychological and social territory. Today it describes everything from a vague bodily ache to the diffuse unease of a whole society.
💡Fun Fact
Malaise picked up a strange political footnote in American history through Jimmy Carter's July 1979 televised address about the nation's energy crisis and eroding confidence. The speech became known forever after as the malaise speech, even though Carter never actually said the word malaise in it. Journalists and critics attached the label afterward, and it stuck so firmly that the association now overshadows the actual text of the address. It remains a favorite example in linguistics circles of how a word can define a moment in public memory without ever being spoken.
