Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being nervous.
  • noun Morbid psychical irritability; unsteadiness of nervous control; a state of despondency consequent on an affection of the nerves.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun State or quality of being nervous.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or quality of being nervous.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a sensitive or highly strung temperament
  • noun an uneasy psychological state
  • noun the anxious feeling you have when you have the jitters

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From nervous +‎ -ness.

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Examples

  • Because we know how well he's done and how well he'll do, his nervousness is amusing and disarming.

    American Everyman 2004

  • Because we know how well he's done and how well he'll do, his nervousness is amusing and disarming.

    American Everyman 2004

  • It was not fear, but what I call nervousness, -- unreasoning, but irresistible; as when, for instance, one looking at the sun going down says, "I will count fifty before it disappears"; and as he goes on and it becomes doubtful whether he will reach the number, he gets strangely flurried, and his imagination pictures life and death and heaven and hell as the issues depending on the completion or non-completion of the fifty he is counting.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 25, November, 1859 Various

  • It was not fear, but what I call nervousness, -- unreasoning, but irresistible; as when, for instance, one looking at the sun going down says, "I will count fifty before it disappears"; and as he goes on and it becomes doubtful whether he will reach the number, he gets strangely flurried, and his imagination pictures life and death and heaven and hell as the issues depending on the completion or non-completion of the fifty he is counting.

    The Professor at the Breakfast-Table Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

  • It was not fear, but what I call nervousness, -- unreasoning, but irresistible; as when, for instance, one looking at the sun going down says, "I will count fifty before it disappears"; and as he goes on and it becomes doubtful whether he will reach the number, he gets strangely flurried, and his imagination pictures life and death and heaven and hell as the issues depending on the completion or non-completion of the fifty he is counting.

    Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

  • "Our nervousness is gone now," said Juan Sanchez, whose son Jimmy is in the mine.

    Trapped Chilean Miners: Drill Finally Breaks Through To Mine AP 2010

  • Still, riding on the back of strong underlying fundamentals, India will retain its status as a favoured investment destination among emerging markets, notwithstanding short-term nervousness that roiled the Indian capital markets earlier this year.

    Private Equity Becomes Integral to India Inc. Sri Rajan 2011

  • "Our nervousness is gone now," said Juan Sanchez, whose son Jimmy is in the mine.

    Trapped Chilean Miners: Drill Finally Breaks Through To Mine AP 2010

  • My nervousness is centred on what one particular person will think of it.

    jitters 2008

  • My nervousness is centred on what one particular person will think of it.

    l’oeil du cyclone 2008

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