nervous

CEFRA2

/ˈnɜːvəs/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Worried, afraid, or easily excited.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    Of sinews and tendons.

Examples

  • I felt really nervous before the interview.

  • She is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

At a glance

Sits at A2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings

  1. Full of sinews.

  2. Having strong or prominent sinews; sinewy, muscular.

  3. Of nerves.

More examples

In context

  • With so many people around he naturally became a bit nervous.

  • Being in a crowd of strangers makes me nervous.

  • Fortescutus illustratus, or a commentary on that nervous treatise De Laudibus Legum Angliæ […] [book title]

Synonyms

Antonyms

Quick test

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Question 1 · Quick check

He felt blank before his job interview and could not sit still.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

adjective

From Middle English nervous (“composed of or incorporating nerves”), from Latin nervōsus (“nervous; sinewy; energetic, vigorous”), from nervus (“nerve; muscle; sinew, tendon; (figuratively) energy, power; nerve; force, strength, vigour”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *snéh₁wr̥ (“sinew, tendon”)) + -ōsus (suffix meaning ‘full of, prone to’ forming adjectives from nouns). The English word is analysable as nerve + -ous.