Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for August 7, 2023 is: malaise \muh-LAYZ\ noun

Malaise refers to a slight or general feeling of not being healthy or happy.

// She couldn’t pinpoint the cause of this overwhelming feeling of malaise.

[See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malaise)

Examples:

“Despite its less-than-satisfying ending, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse serves the coolest animated kids I’ve seen since Miles felt that first bite from a radioactive spider five years ago. The movie opens with an all-girl, multiracial garage band coping with Gwen Stacy’s (Hailee Steinfeld) malaise and ends with a team as powerful as rock stars ready to save the world.” — Eisa Nefertari Ulen, The Hollywood Reporter, 13 June 2023

Did you know?

A recipe: combine a handful of the [blahs](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blah), a pinch of the [blues](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/blues), and maybe a [soupçon](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/soupcon) of [ennui](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ennui), season generously with “[under the weather](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weather#under-the-weather),” and voila, you’ve got yourself the stew of sinking sensations known as malaise. Malaise, whose Old French ancestor was formed from the combination of mal (“bad”) and aise (“comfort”), has been a part of English since the mid-18th century. It originally referred to a vague feeling of weakness or discomfort accompanying the onset of an illness—a meaning still in use today when a virus or other [malady](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malady) starts producing symptoms—but has since broadened to cover a general, ominous sense of mental or moral ill-being.