Library / English Dictionary

NERVOUSLY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (adverb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

In an anxiously nervous manner

Example:

we watched the stock market nervously

Classified under:

Adverbs

Pertainym:

nervous (easily agitated)

Sense 2

Meaning:

With nervous excitement

Example:

our bodies jumped nervously away at the slightest touch

Classified under:

Adverbs

Pertainym:

nervous (unpredictably excitable (especially of horses))

Credits

 Context examples: 

He leaned forward, licking his lips, nervously spreading and closing his fingers, while he watched Martin write a check.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The European Secretary pulled nervously at his moustache and fidgeted with the seals of his watch-chain.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Have you really burned it? said Jo, turning very pale, while her eyes kindled and her hands clutched Amy nervously.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I added, nervously.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"Why, yes, yes, dinner, you know—just pot luck with us, with your old superintendent, you rascal," he uttered nervously, poking Martin in an attempt at jocular fellowship.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Hannah nodded without speaking, for her lips twitched nervously, Meg dropped down into a chair as the strength seemed to go out of her limbs at the sound of those words, and Jo, standing with a pale face for a minute, ran to the parlor, snatched up the telegram, and throwing on her things, rushed out into the storm.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Good, as goodness might be measured in their particular class, hard-working for meagre wages and scorning the sale of self for easier ways, nervously desirous for some small pinch of happiness in the desert of existence, and facing a future that was a gamble between the ugliness of unending toil and the black pit of more terrible wretchedness, the way whereto being briefer though better paid.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby in a white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold-colored tie hurried in.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

I ejaculated an unrestrained "Huh!" and he must have heard me for he went on nervously: What I called up about was a pair of shoes I left there. I wonder if it'd be too much trouble to have the butler send them on. You see they're tennis shoes and I'm sort of helpless without them. My address is care of B. F.—

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)