Complete classic literature • Five-line readings • Clear US narration
VELMORA ACADEMY
Academy of Archival Languages & Memory Studies
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nervous

adjective US /ˈnɜːrvəs/

easily agitated

How often you will meet it

Rank 1,878 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 9,562 times across 175,112 chapters — 0.005% of every word in the library.

What it means

adjective

  1. easily agitated a nervous addicta nervous thoroughbred
  2. causing or fraught with or showing anxiety also: anxious, queasy, uneasy, unquiet spent an anxious night waiting for the test resultscast anxious glances behind her
  3. of or relating to the nervous system also: neural nervous diseaseneural disorder
  4. excited in anticipation also: aflutter
  5. unpredictably excitable (especially of horses) also: skittish, flighty, spooky

CMU Pronouncing Dictionary · Princeton WordNet 3.1

nervous in real books

Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.

  • A nervous shudder shook M. Costeclar’s lean frame.

    Other People's Money · Emile Gaboriau · Chapter 1

  • Augustus lit a cigarette and smoked in a nervous way, and kept opening and shutting the window.

    The Reflections of Ambrosine: A Novel · Elinor Glyn · Chapter 1

  • The prisoner narrated all this in nervous haste, though he had already given every particular, time and again.

    Lahoma · J. Breckenridge (John Breckenridge) Ellis · Chapter 1

  • I could not say that I was nervous, but there was certainly, to me, a something strange in the atmosphere.

    The Little Nugget · P. G. (Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse · Chapter 1

  • Granny was nervous and irritable because she knew that she would be forced to join the rest at the table that night.

    The Soul of a Child · Edwin Björkman · Chapter 1

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