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What is "nervous"

Crossword clues for nervous

nervous
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
nervous
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a complete nervous breakdown
▪ He had a complete nervous after leaving university.
a nervous giggle
▪ She gave a nervous giggle before answering.
a nervous glance
▪ He shot a nervous glance at his wife.
a nervous laugh
▪ ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said with a nervous laugh.
artistic/nervous/good etc temperament
▪ Jill has such a lovely relaxed temperament.
be heading for a nervous breakdown (=be likely to suffer one soon)
▪ She should slow down a bit - I think she's heading for a nervous breakdown.
be on the verge/edge of a nervous breakdown (=to be very close to having a nervous breakdown)
▪ These events left her on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
central nervous system
have a nervous breakdown
▪ My mother had a nervous breakdown after my father's death.
nervous energy (=energy that comes from being nervous or excited)
▪ She seems to thrive on nervous energy.
nervous exhaustion (=when you become ill because you have been working too hard or have been very worried)
nervous laughter (=because someone is nervous and not sure how to react)
▪ Nervous laughter greeted her remarks.
nervous system
nervous tension
▪ The night before the wedding my mother was in a state of nervous tension.
nervous/emotional wreck
▪ The attack had left her an emotional wreck.
nervous/restless excitement (=a feeling of being worried and unable to relax)
▪ My nervous excitement increased with each passing minute.
of a nervous/sociable/sensitive etc disposition (=having a nervous etc character)
▪ The film is not suitable for people of a nervous disposition.
on the verge of a nervous breakdown
▪ an event which left her on the verge of a nervous breakdown
sb’s digestive/reproductive/nervous system (=in someone’s body)
▪ These vitamins are essential for a healthy nervous system.
suffer a nervous breakdown
▪ At university, Jan suffered a nervous breakdown and was treated for depression.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
as
▪ They were as nervous as we were.
▪ Retail sales have fallen by about half in recent weeks as nervous consumers rein in spending.
▪ Was she going to be as nervous as this for the rest of their stay?
▪ I wasn't nearly as nervous as I had been the other times, even though the audience was twice the size.
▪ Hurrying back to the site, she had felt as nervous as a teenager going on her first date.
▪ Though this was only a preliminary, hypothetical run-through, she felt as nervous as a bride at a wedding rehearsal.
▪ The question is, how did these people come to see themselves primarily as nervous and only secondarily as hungry, malnourished?
▪ I may say I was almost as nervous as any of my students at this point.
more
▪ Why should that make him even more nervous?
▪ But he quickened the tempo of our lives, left us more nervous, speedy, irritable.
▪ John and Malc watched hours of rehearsals from the stalls of the Palladium, both becoming more nervous by the second.
▪ She knew that if she didn't speak Carla would get more and more nervous, eventually breaking the heavy silence herself.
▪ I seem to be more nervous in that way than I once was.
▪ I try to encourage them by saying it is my material they are using, which sometimes makes the person more nervous!
▪ The patrols around the perimeter seemed more nervous and aggressive.
▪ Standing outside I was getting more and more nervous.
so
▪ Gravellier felt nervous, so nervous he'd been unable to eat any breakfast.
▪ Aileen was so nervous that her whole body was bobbing up and down as she chewed gum.
▪ It wasn't the possibility of Louis learning of their presence in the town that was making her so nervous.
▪ I was so nervous that night.
▪ The international banking community was so nervous that for a while no forward foreign exchange markets operated properly anywhere.
▪ I was so nervous I locked the keys inside my car.
▪ I remember Shostakovich was so nervous but at the same time so impressed.
▪ The imposing figure made them so nervous that they forgot to recite the statements they had carefully rehearsed the night before.
too
▪ We had been too nervous to arrive after dark.
▪ Dave Tanner was a bit too nervous for a man on his own territory.
▪ I was too nervous to putt well.
▪ I'd been too nervous to eat breakfast in the hotel and it was now 10.30am and I was starving.
▪ Both seem too nervous to survive, even just college.
▪ It had begun exploding when you lit the back burners, and Mrs Hooper was getting too nervous to touch it.
▪ Tobie was just five years old-too small and pale for her age, too nervous from the parental arguments.
very
▪ I stood by the door feeling very nervous.
▪ Rod was very nervous having to do without his usual helicopter coverage.
▪ She was still very nervous, though Mrs. Castell knew to make a fuss of her.
▪ Some survive; those that do get very nervous, and understandably so.
▪ Female speaker Very excited, very nervous also but I am relly looking forward to it.
▪ Magruder and his inferior force very nervous.
▪ On the first evening the singers are always very nervous at having to perform before such a distinguished audience.
▪ Mr Dean talks like a very nervous man being questioned by the police and trying to carry it off.
■ NOUN
breakdown
▪ Popa, who had headed the Bucharest Military Court since 1987, was known to have suffered a nervous breakdown.
▪ Logan, who had had two nervous breakdowns, said that he would take the pills himself.
▪ His solicitor said he was suffering from an acute nervous breakdown.
▪ He said she acted erratic, got the shakes one evening and almost had a nervous breakdown.
▪ One needed to go on a crash diet, the other was in the middle of a nervous breakdown.
▪ So no one told him he was already heading for a complete nervous breakdown.
▪ They are almost three times as prone to nervous breakdowns.
condition
▪ Voice over Multiple Sclerosis is a nervous condition brought about by the destruction of blood vessels in the brain.
▪ Actual bodily harm need not be serious harm and it has been held to include a hysterical and nervous condition.
disorder
▪ Let us therefore assume that nervous disorders act as an intervening variable.
▪ There are wards for children with pulmonary disease and nervous disorders.
▪ In the first, nervous disorders are just an additional cause of absenteeism, but are unrelated to the type of job.
▪ In the second, nervous disorders have no effect on absenteeism, despite the fact that they are caused by poor jobs.
▪ Many of their colleagues are off work sick for long periods being treated for nervous disorders.
disposition
▪ She was of a nervous disposition, Miss Kilspindie.
▪ And any such aberration includes a nervous disposition toward children.
energy
▪ There, often with Susan Einzig as his partner, his nervous energy became concentrated, dervish-like, into a trance-like state.
▪ During contests he was as jumpy as a schoolgirl and gave off a static charge of nervous energy.
▪ She felt elated and furious, and trembled with nervous energy.
▪ The world might end at any moment; the illustrations of ninth-century Apocalypses are charged with innovation and nervous energy.
▪ He's been living on his reserves of nervous energy for the past couple of weeks.
▪ She was exhausting company, not because she argued but because there was a constant play of restless nervous energy in her.
exhaustion
▪ Yet it s a one-joke play that teases out its central idea to the point of nervous exhaustion.
▪ Behind dosed doors Diana cried her eyes out with nervous exhaustion.
▪ A week later he wrote to apologise to all six, putting his behaviour down to nervous exhaustion.
▪ Nor could they show her nervous exhaustion, her permanent anxiety for her loved ones, her acute worry about tomorrow.
▪ This probably exacerbated his tendency to long periods of nervous exhaustion, which caused his absence from his parish while he recovered.
▪ Their company seemed to drain me and send me into a state of nervous exhaustion after even a short while.
▪ Most of the others were suffering from a degree of nervous exhaustion after the long takeover struggle.
glance
▪ Sweeping a nervous glance around the dark garden, Loretta joined them in Puddephat's sitting-room.
▪ She must not let a nervous glance betray her.
▪ The girls exchanged nervous glances, thinking that it must be Miss Hardbroom come to reprimand them for being out of bed.
▪ She sat down again beside Dauntless, casting him nervous glances.
laugh
▪ The humour was heavy-handed and, in response to Simon Franks' nervous laugh, Blanche smiled politely.
▪ Marie said with a nervous laugh as she gave him a dime.
▪ A nervous laugh, because she was beginning to feel uneasy.
▪ She was a shy, quiet woman in her mid-twenties with a tinkling nervous laugh.
▪ The silence that followed was finally broken by a nervous laugh from one of the men-at-arms.
smile
▪ She glanced at her brother sitting beside her and managed a weak, nervous smile.
▪ She smiled slightly, a nervous smile that held kindliness.
▪ The man, middle-aged, wearing a suit, complied with a nervous smile.
strain
▪ It could not be true that nervous strain made you lose weight.
system
▪ Even amongst those organisms with well-coordinated nervous systems, a good case can be made for the dominance of beetles over mammals.
▪ All these are degenerative diseases of the central nervous system.
▪ This poison apparently affects the nervous system.
▪ By reflex action - a mechanism of the nervous system - the threatened hand is instantly withdrawn and the threatened eye closed.
▪ Images serve as cues stimulating the nervous system, causing muscles to respond subconsciously.
▪ Other organisms show evidence for muscular activity and so presumably a nervous system, as well as the inferred presence of a circulatory system.
▪ Because alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, many people are under the impression that it improves sleep.
tension
▪ Walking will help you to sleep and is an antidote to stress, nervous tension and depression.
▪ The faster machines move the faster man lives and the bigger the tribute in nervous tension he pays to the machine.
▪ In the period leading up to the actual fight, first-time fighters are suddenly stricken with nervous tension.
▪ Passion flower is employed around the world as a mild sedative that reduces nervous tension and anxiety.
▪ In her state of extreme nervous tension she had clutched those dollars so tightly that they'd almost disintegrated.
▪ Others seem to hear your heartbeat and remain in a constant state of nervous tension.
▪ Up in the stand some one giggled with nervous tension.
▪ I didn't sleep the night before the exam because of nervous tension, however, so I didn't do very well.
twitch
▪ Constant activity can easily become an ineffectual nervous twitch.
▪ He had a nervous twitch and a speech impediment.
▪ He had a nervous twitch which jerked at a muscle at the corner of his thin-lipped mouth and a malevolent stare.
wreck
▪ Just the thing for a twitching little nervous wreck who keeps passing out on her dinner dates.
▪ By the time my friends left, l was a nervous wreck.
▪ Of course, we hardly needed to say, as we made our way upstairs, that we were both nervous wrecks.
▪ Apparently some of them nervous wrecks.
▪ It had to be learnt, if we were not to turn into nervous wrecks.
▪ She was a nervous wreck, and all that was wrong with the child was measles.
▪ At this rate she would go back to London a nervous wreck and have to resign.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
come over (all) shy/nervous etc
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a nervous disorder
▪ a thin, nervous woman
▪ Bill looked nervous, and I could see his hands were shaking.
▪ Harry began to feel nervous again as the plane made its descent.
▪ I'm a little nervous about leaving the kids at home all alone.
▪ I'm always nervous before exams.
▪ I was so nervous about my exams that I couldn't sleep.
▪ It makes me nervous when you drive that fast.
▪ Jill's always been a little nervous of dogs.
▪ Kelli was so nervous about her exam that she couldn't sleep.
▪ Many investors are nervous about their investments after the recent drop in the stock market.
▪ Mr Darby was a mild, nervous man who seemed to expect people to ignore him.
▪ Mum gets nervous if we don't call to say we're late.
▪ People of a nervous disposition may be upset by some of the scenes in the following programme.
▪ Sanders reassured nervous students that loans would be available this fall.
▪ She's such a nervous child we don't like to leave her on her own.
▪ Stop tapping your feet! You're making me nervous.
▪ The sounds outside were making me feel nervous.
▪ The stage is huge, you know, and I walked out there, and I was real nervous.
▪ You know what makes me nervous? When people drive really close behind you.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ As soon as you make a nervous slip, he explodes with anger - humiliating you in front of colleagues.
▪ Doctors say the drug causes body temperatures to rise so high that the central nervous system shuts down.
▪ It became possible to test theories about nervous system functions.
▪ Skinheads, on the other hand, are nervous and twitchy.
▪ The basis of these unities does not seem to lie within the nervous system as it is currently conceived.
▪ We were always concerned, but never nervous.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Nervous

Nervous \Nerv"ous\ (n[~e]rv"[u^]s), a. [L. nervosus sinewy, vigorous: cf. F. nerveux. See Nerve.]

  1. Possessing nerve; sinewy; strong; vigorous. ``Nervous arms.''
    --Pope.

  2. Possessing or manifesting vigor of mind; characterized by strength in sentiment or style; forcible; spirited; as, a nervous writer.

  3. Of or pertaining to the nerves; seated in the nerves; as, nervous excitement; a nervous fever.

  4. Having the nerves weak, diseased, or easily excited; subject to, or suffering from, undue excitement of the nerves; easily agitated or annoyed.

    Poor, weak, nervous creatures.
    --Cheyne.

  5. Sensitive; excitable; timid.

  6. Apprehensive; as, a child nervous about his mother's reaction to his bad report card.

    Our aristocratic class does not firmly protest against the unfair treatment of Irish Catholics, because it is nervous about the land.
    --M. Arnold.

    Nervous fever (Med.), a low form of fever characterized by great disturbance of the nervous system, as evinced by delirium, or stupor, disordered sensibility, etc.

    Nervous system (Anat.), the specialized co["o]rdinating apparatus which endows animals with sensation and volition. In vertebrates it is often divided into three systems: the central, brain and spinal cord; the peripheral, cranial and spinal nerves; and the sympathetic. See Brain, Nerve, Spinal cord, under Spinal, and Sympathetic system, under Sympathetic, and Illust. in Appendix.

    Nervous temperament, a condition of body characterized by a general predominance of mental manifestations.
    --Mayne.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
nervous

c.1400, "affecting the sinews," from Latin nervosus "sinewy, vigorous," from nervus "sinew, nerve" (see nerve). Meaning "of or belonging to the nerves" in the modern sense is from 1660s. Meaning "suffering disorder of the nervous system" is from 1734; illogical sense "restless, agitated, lacking nerve" is 1740. Widespread popular use as a euphemism for mental forced the medical community to coin neurological to replace it in the older sense. Nervous wreck first attested 1862. Related: Nervously; nervousness.

Wiktionary
nervous

a. 1 (context obscure English) Of a piece of writing: forceful, powerful. 2 Easily agitated or alarmed; on edge or edgy. 3 apprehensive, anxious, hesitant, worried. 4 Relating to or affecting the nerves.

Related phrases:
WordNet
nervous

  1. adj. easily agitated; "quick nervous movements"

  2. causing or fraught with or showing anxiety; "spent an anxious night waiting for the test results"; "cast anxious glances behind her"; "those nervous moments before takeoff"; "an unquiet mind" [syn: anxious, uneasy, unquiet]

  3. of or relating to the nervous system; "nervous disease"; "neural disorder" [syn: neural]

  4. excited in anticipation [syn: aflutter]

  5. unpredictably excitable (especially of horses) [syn: skittish, spooky]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Nervous

Nervous may refer to:

  • Nervous system, a network of cells in an animal's body that coordinates movement and the senses
    • Nervous tissue, the cells of the nervous system that work in aggregate to transmit signals
  • "Nervous" (song), a song first recorded by Gene Summers and His Rebels in 1958
  • Nervous Records, a UK record label
  • Nervous Records (US), a US record label
Nervous (song)

"Nervous" is a rockabilly/ doo-wop song first recorded by Gene Summers and His Rebels in 1958 and later covered by Robert Gordon and Link Wray, among others. It was composed by Mary Tarver in 1957, published by Ted Music, BMI and issued on Jan/Jane Records. The "Nervous" recording session took place at Liberty Records Studios in Hollywood, California in June 1958 and featured Rene Hall and James McClung on guitar, Plas Johnson on saxophone, Earl Palmer on drums, and George "Red" Callendar on bass. The background vocal group was the Five Masks (Al "TNT" Bragg, Cal Valentine, Robert Valentine, Billy Fred Thomas and Jesse Lee Floyd). The flipside of "Nervous" was " Gotta Lotta That".

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "nervous".

Menstruation may fail to be established in consequence of organic defects, or from some abnormal condition of the blood and nervous system.

I was a great sufferer from nervous indigestion and acidity of the stomach.

The causes, if they can be determined, should be removed, and those remedies administered which relieve nervous irritability and cerebral congestion.

Though burdened by the giant molecules, his sympathetic nervous system and adrenal glands, which were particularly affected in others, were quite indifferent to the asps.

The tidal regularity of cerebral chemical flows, the cyclonic violence latent in the adrenergic current of the autonomic nervous system, the delicate mysteries of the sweep of oxygen atoms from pneumonic membrane into the bloodstream.

British, nervous for their Asiatic empire, and sensible of the immense moral effect of the airship upon half-educated populations, had placed their aeronautic parks in North India, and were able to play but a subordinate part in the European conflict.

Other tissue-salts may be needed to deal with individual symptoms but the above are the most frequently needed remedies for ailments of a truly nervous character.

Flewelling Feeling nervous and exposed, Alec tried one pick and then another.

Wrapping the reins more securely around his fist, Alec coaxed the nervous mare along with soothing words as her hooves struck loose stones.

NORMALLY, Renz was a man of poise, while Alker was inclined to be nervous.

As the aeroplane tore higher into the thin atmosphere, out of the window Mandelstim could see the many, many camps, each a white clearing in the forest, like patches of nervous alopecia in a dark green beard.

Nervous about his costly library and his revisionist views, they were always eager to speak to Cassandra, hoping for some gaffe or juicy bit of gossip to pass her lips.

Her daring lover had returned to her, banishing the nervous amnesiac of a few moments ago, and she wanted to sing from both relief and fresh desire.

He prefers a comfortable hotel on the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, where he recovers health and renovates his nervous system by taking daily excursions along the coast to the Casino.

Nervous Prostration, or Nervous Weakness, and, to the medical profession, as Neurasthenia, or Nervous Asthenia, is becoming alarmingly prevalent.