Etymologically
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nervous

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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
  • 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