bite one's nails

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Idioms and Phrases

Exhibit signs of anxiety, impatience, or nervousness, as in We'll be biting our nails till the jury comes back . Biting one's fingernails is a time-honored sign of emotional tension. The Roman satirist Horace described it about 35 b.c. : “As he wrought his verse he would often ... gnaw his nails to the quick” ( Satires , Book 1).

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April 23, 2024inveterate

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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