nervous

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

nervous (ˈnɜːvəs)

—*adj*
1.	very excitable or sensitive; highly strung
2.	(often foll by of) apprehensive or worried: I'm nervous of traffic
3.	of, relating to, or containing nerves; neural: nervous tissue
4.	affecting the nerves or nervous tissue: a nervous disease
5.	archaic active, vigorous, or forceful

'nervously

—*adv*

'nervousness

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

nervous

c.1400, "affecting the sinews," from L. nervosus "sinewy, vigorous," from nervus "sinew, nerve" (see nerve). Sense of "of or belonging to the nerves" in the modern sense is from 1665. Meaning "suffering disorder of the nervous system" is from 1734; illogical sense "restless,

agitated, lacking nerve" is 1740. Widespread popular use as a euphemism for mental forced the medical community to coin neurological to replace it in the older sense. Nervous wreck first attested 1899.

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

nervous nerv·ous (nûr'vəs)
adj.

Of or relating to the nerves or nervous system.
Stemming from or affecting the nerves or nervous system, as a disease.
Easily agitated or distressed.

nerv'ous·ness n.

Example sentences

The last three years have been full of nervous action and reaction.

But what's really making me nervous is the green liquid in the tube.

The doctors have told me its nothing of concern however it makes me nervous.

Gilly is an electrophysiologist, an expert on the wiring of the nervous system.

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cerebrospinal nervous system chorea nerve cord nervous exhaustion nervous Nellie neurasthenia

Matching Quote

"Every reader of the French or German papers knows that not a day passes without producing some uneasy discussion of supposed social decrepitude;Mfalling off of the birthrate;Mdecline of rural population;Mlowering of army standards;Mmultiplication of suicides;Mincrease of insanity or idiocy,—of cancer,—of tuberculosis;Msigns of nervous exhaustion,—of enfeebled vitality,—"habits" of alcoholism and drugs,—failure of eyesight in the young,—and so on, without end."

-Henry Brooks Adams