Is there a word to describe the feeling of utter wrongness?

I’d say it makes me feel ‘sick’ :-/

Off-topic: This reminds me of the first German term that pops into my head (I had to Google it): schadenfreude (the word for taking pleasure in another person’s misery).

I’m curious about this myself, and the English renditions of it (I like the examples you used).

Edit: the best English word I can think of for that feeling is perturbed?

Gross pretty much does it.

Do you mean like when your finger goes through the toilet paper?

Like nails on a chalk board?

;aksjfd;lkadfsak

That’s the word I’d use.

I did think of schadenfreude too though.

“Revulsion?”

Repulsiveness or repulsion.

Consternation

1. Feelings of anxiety or dismay, typically at something unexpected

Etymology: from Fr. consternation “dismay, confusion,” from L. consternationem (nom. consternatio) “confusion, dismay,” from consternat-, pp. stem of consternare “overcome, confuse, dismay, perplex, terrify, alarm,” probably related to consternere “throw down, prostrate,”

No, it’s not quite revulsion, nothing so dramatic, just a sort of creeping horror, a sense that all is not as it should be. That you’re feeling something of such unique strangeness that you’re existentially moved in some way. It’s the feeling you get when walking into a familiar room and sensing something out of place, or that kind of prickly dread that rises in your gorge when you feel a lump under your skin somewhere there shouldn’t be. Consternation is close, but it doesn’t capture the weirdness of the sensation.

It’s a feeling that something is terribly, terribly out of place in the cosmos, but you can’t quite identify it.

I think @thorninmud‘s word fits the best. Otherwise, you are probably looking for at least two words or a phrase (in my opinion).

?? @shrubbery – schadenfreude translates to malicious joy, spitefulness

Dread?

Foreboding?

Fear?

For some reason, saying the same things in spanish is more of a match for me… not sure why.

“Tengo miedo. Me da miedo lo que viene. Hay un sentimiento de aprensión.”
(not sure if this is a perfect translation)

@EnchantingEla I know but there are often words in other languages that describe something we don’t have a word for in English, and, like @fizzbanger, I was reminded of it by this question.

@SmashTheState maybe you need to go to the library and borrow out a book like this?

Trepidation. The inner part of you hardwired to see the Sabre tooth tiger as not a pussy cat. lol

@shrubbery My apologizes. I read it as the German word for the feeling he was describing. (hence the ??) : )

How about Angst then?

And it’s German!

@EnchantingEla sorry, I guess I should have directed it at @fizzbanger to say I agree it reminded me of it too :)

What about widdendream?

Or Toska or Litost?

Personally, I think you are using too many descriptive words to narrow it down to a single word. I am finding myself getting excessively sidetracked in the search for it and have bookmarked 4 sites already! LOL
It will be interesting to see what follows.

@shrubbery thanks for that fun link ; )

I can’t think of a single word, but I know a sound, and I often use it when I find myself in this situation.

Think the first notes of the theme from Twilight Zone.

Unheimlich?

I second Dread. You’re not sure if pain, shame, angst, horror or anger is in order yet but you know something is very very wrong.

I don’t know about dread. That would imply that the thing has not happened yet, and the person is (negatively) anticipating its occurrence.

“Unsettled”? It means “dismayed,” or “uneasy.”

Interesting that you cannot make “consternation” into a verb or adjective. “I am consterned” or “I am consternated”?

And I can’t make “unsettled” into a noun. “Unsettlement”? Probably not.

How about “thumb-pricking”?

any Ray Bradbury fans here?

@gailcalled Hmm, you’re right. You’d have to make it into a phrase. Riddled with consternation? Plagued by consternation? Addled with consternation?

Now I’m thinking of the word “disconcerted”, but that leans more towards “confused” or “thrown off” than “grossed out”.

@MagsRags But that would be for Shakespeare fans, originally! :)

loved Something Wicked This Way Comes.

@dappled_leaves dang, you’re right. One of those cases of the borrowed phrase taking on new resonance in a new context. Shakespeare would actually be another rich vein to mine for this question.

Great question @SmashTheState. I think I know what you’re going for… It’s like that feeling just before an unavoidable accident when real time slows and your brain has time to think “Oh, shit. This is gonna hurt!”
There does have to be a word for that (likely Germanic). I need to think some more.

I don’t know a good word for the emotional feeling, but the word to describe your body’s reaction is “shock”.

I use the non-word squicky. Anything that causes me to involuntarily shudder makes me feel squicky.

I use the willies, as in that creepy guy gives me the willies. I guess you can also use creepy or eerie, but that connotates fear, which I don’t think you’re feeling. At least not the way you describe.

But I bet you are looking for an impressive word. The willies is not so impressive.

@shrubbery Toska is actually very close to an antonym for what I’m talking about, which gives me hope that somewhere, some culture has put a word to this sensation. I find it odd that, with the universality of the experience, there’s isn’t a single clear phrase in English to describe it.

@lloydbird Angst is close, but it implies knowledge of the source of the feeling. It’s too specific. The feeling I’m talking about is more free-floating, like a kind of vertigo of the soul.

(Incidentally, in case anyone is curious, what got me thinking about this is that I was recently in the hospital for an abscess in my groin, and in the middle of being surrounded by urologists, surgeons, infectious disease specialists, and nurses probing my perineum and inspecting my testicles under intense light with exacting attention, I had the sudden Zen-like realization, “Wow, I’m really here, right now, and there really is a crowd of people staring with rapt attention to my balls.” And then, today, I bent my fingernail back and got a shock of recognition that the feeling of queer wrongness was identical to what I felt in the hospital — and I had no idea what to call the sensation.)

How about ‘agita’ ? ...something fundamentally or primally unnerving.

What about ‘dissonance’? That seems to sum up the inner turmoil you had when you realized that there was a definite lack of harmony or order to the events of your day and it just felt utterly wrong but you couldn’t put your finger on it.

To me the word that best fits it is anxiety. Yes, it’s common, but it has all the elements you describe. Maybe that isn’t specific enouugh for you? In tryint to look up a German term I came across the word mortido. It describes the energy of the death urge Thanatos. It is the counterpoint to Libido. May not fit but it’s an interesting word all the same.

I don’t know if there’s an English word for the feeling you describe, but I feel it as well @SmashTheState.
A subtle feeling of “wrongness” about everything. I actually came here because I googled that question.