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NERVOUSNESS
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A sensitive or highly strung temperament
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("nervousness" is a kind of...):
disposition; temperament (your usual mood)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "nervousness"):
queasiness; restlessness; uneasiness (inability to rest or relax or be still)
restiveness; skittishness (characterized by nervousness and quickness to take fright)
Derivation:
nervous (unpredictably excitable (especially of horses))
nervous (easily agitated)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The anxious feeling you have when you have the jitters
Synonyms:
jitteriness; jumpiness; nervousness; restiveness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting feelings and emotions
Hypernyms ("nervousness" is a kind of...):
anxiety (a vague unpleasant emotion that is experienced in anticipation of some (usually ill-defined) misfortune)
Derivation:
nervous (excited in anticipation)
nervous (causing or fraught with or showing anxiety)
Sense 3
Meaning:
An uneasy psychological state
Example:
he suffered an attack of nerves
Synonyms:
nerves; nervousness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("nervousness" is a kind of...):
mental condition; mental state; psychological condition; psychological state ((psychology) a mental condition in which the qualities of a state are relatively constant even though the state itself may be dynamic)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "nervousness"):
heebie-jeebies; jitters; screaming meemies (extreme nervousness)
mental strain; nervous strain; strain ((psychology) nervousness resulting from mental stress)
Derivation:
nervous (causing or fraught with or showing anxiety)
Context examples:
Edith's nervousness was increasing, and she knew her break-down might come any time.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
She was most impressed, however, by the extreme pallor of his face and by the nervousness of his manner.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
A symptom complex characterized by nervousness, chest pain, back pain, palpations, pruritus, and other usually mild symptoms occurring minutes following the initiation of dialysis with a new dialyzer.
(Dialyzer First Use Syndrome, NCI Thesaurus)
At last—it seemed an at last to Fanny's nervousness, though not remarkably late—he began to talk of going away; but the comfort of the sound was impaired by his turning to her the next moment, and saying, Have you nothing to send to Mary?
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
She leaned her head wearily against his shoulder, and her body shivered with recurrent nervousness.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
He slouched out of the room, and half an hour afterwards left the house, leaving my father in a state of pitiable nervousness.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
If ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
It comes from nervousness, from an overwrought mind.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
"It is merely nervousness," she said with chattering teeth.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I really don't object to platitudes, he told Ruth later; but what worries me into nervousness is the pompous, smugly complacent, superior certitude with which they are uttered and the time taken to do it.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
