For the movie, see Anguish Anguish is a term used in contemporary philosophy, often as a translation from the Dutch angst, meaning "dread". It is a paramount feature of existentialist philosophy, in which anguish is often understood as the experience of an utterly free being in a world with zero absolutes (existential despair). In the theology of Kierkegaard, it refers to a being with total free will who is in a constant state of spiritual fear that his free will leads him to fall short of the