Nervous

How to spell nervous

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce nervous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does nervous mean?

1. adjectiveEasily worried, anxious, or fearful, especially before an event.
2. adjectiveRelating to the nerves or the body's network of nerves.

Nervous in a sentence

• She felt nervous before the job interview.

• The doctor explained how the nervous system controls movement.

• He was too nervous to speak in front of the whole team.

• Caffeine acts as a stimulant on the central nervous system.

Where does nervous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin nervosus, meaning 'sinewy' or 'full of sinews', which was built on nervus, the Latin word for a sinew, tendon, or string. In its earliest English uses during the late 1300s and 1400s, nervous actually meant 'vigorous' or 'sinewy', describing physical strength and muscle, a sense almost opposite to the modern one. As medical understanding of the body developed, the word attached itself to the nerves of the nervous system, and by the 1700s it had drifted toward describing people who were easily agitated or anxious, since their nerves were thought to be highly strung. The familiar -ous ending, meaning 'full of', is the same suffix found in words like 'famous' and 'dangerous', and it is the reason the spelling keeps a single trailing 's' rather than the doubled or softened ending writers sometimes expect.

How the word is built

• nerv- (from Latin nervus: sinew, nerve)
• -ous (adjective suffix meaning 'full of')