In therapy, anxiety is an emotion in the “fear” group, which is one of a few fundamental emotional directions. Once you learn to watch and name your emotions, it becomes pretty clear if you’re anxious or not. So the term itself is correct and universal. But the cause of anxiety is in a big part person-specific and harder to expose. The other part is incorrect brain chemistry, chronic or acute.

That said, we have names for some common fears, e.g. caller anxiety. But again, is it universal?