nervous-nellie

noun Informal.

a constantly nervous, worried, or timid person.

Origin:
1925–30

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Slang Dictionary

nervous Nellie definition

n.
any nervous person, male or female. : Sue is such a nervous Nellie. She should calm down.

Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Relevant Questions

What Is Nervous Nel·lie?

00:10

Nervous-nellie is always a great word to know.

So is doohickey. Does it mean:

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.

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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

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