nervous

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈnɜː.vəs/, US /ˈnɝː.vəs/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nervōsus (“sinewy, vigorous”),^[2][3][4] from nervus (“sinew, nerve”).^[2][4] It is related to nerve.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Affecting the sinews, and containing nerves or sinews: the late 14th century in Etymonline, about 1400 and 1413 in the OED.^[2][5] Sinewy and muscular are the original senses.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Of writing, vigorous and forceful, is from the 1630s.^[2][5] Of or belonging to the nerves in the modern anatomical sense is from the 1660s.^[2] The opposite meaning, suffering from a disorder of the nervous system, is from 1734, which gave the “illogical” sense restless, easily agitated, timid, in 1740.^[2] The popularity of these senses led the medical profession to coin neurological to replace nervous in the sense “of the nerves”.^[2] Nervous wreck is first attested in 1862 and nervous breakdown in 1866.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – of the sinews.^[5]
• 1637 – of writing, vigorous.^[5]
• 1660s – of the nerves.^[2]
• 1734 – having a nervous disorder.^[2]
• 1740 – easily agitated, timid.^[2]
• 1866 – nervous breakdown.^[2]

Modern meaning

Adjective

1. Worried or afraid; anxious.
2. Easily excited or upset; highly strung.
3. Relating to or affecting the nerves: the nervous system.
4. (archaic) Strong and vigorous.

Word family

• nervously
• nervousness
• nonnervous
• overnervous
• seminervous
• unnervous
• autonomic nervous system
• central nervous system

Related words

• nervosity
• nerve
• nervy
• neural

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press