Nerve

How to spell nerve

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce nerve

What does nerve mean?

1. nounA bundle of fibres that carries signals between the brain and the body.
2. nounSteady courage or boldness, especially under pressure.
3. nounBrazen rudeness or audacity.
4. verbTo brace or steel oneself for something difficult or frightening.

Nerve in a sentence

• noun

  The dentist warned that the drilling might touch a nerve in the tooth.

• noun

  She lost her nerve at the last moment and stepped back from the edge.

• noun

  He had the nerve to ask for a refund after wrecking the rental car.

• verb

  He had to nerve himself before opening the letter with his exam results.

• noun

  A trapped nerve in his lower back caused weeks of pain.

• noun

  It took real nerve to give the speech in front of the whole company.

Where does nerve come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin nervus, which literally meant 'sinew', 'tendon', or 'bowstring', the tough fibres that give the body its pull and tension. The Romans in turn echoed the Greek neuron, which carried the same sense of a string or cord and survives today in medical words like 'neuron' and 'neurology'. English took the word up in the late 1300s, at first using it for sinews and tendons, before anatomy gradually narrowed its meaning to the fibres that carry signals through the body. From that physical strength came the figurative senses of 'firmness' and 'courage', and later the cheeky meaning of 'bold impudence'. The bowstring image lingers in the phrase 'to strain every nerve', a reminder that the word once meant something stretched taut and ready to act.

How the word is built

• nerv- (from Latin nervus: sinew, bowstring)
• -e