Nervously

How to spell nervously

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce nervously

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does nervously mean?

1. adverbIn an anxious, tense, or uneasy manner.

Nervously in a sentence

• She waited nervously outside the interview room.

• He glanced nervously at the clock as the deadline approached.

Where does nervously come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adverb traces back to the Latin nervus, which literally meant a sinew or tendon, the tough cords that move the body. Roman and later medieval writers also used the word for the strands we now call nerves, and from there the sense drifted toward ideas of strength, tension, and sensitivity. English took 'nerve' through Old French in the late Middle Ages, and by the 1700s 'nervous' had shifted from meaning 'sinewy and vigorous' to its modern sense of being anxious, easily agitated, or on edge. The adverb 'nervously' simply stacks the regular '-ly' ending onto 'nervous', so the spelling keeps the full 'nervous' intact before the suffix. Remembering that the base word is 'nervous' (not 'nervus') is the reliable guard against dropping the second vowel.

How the word is built

• nerv- (from Latin nervus: sinew, tendon, later 'nerve')
• -ous (full of)
• -ly (adverb suffix)