edgy
/ˈɛdʒi
/adjective (edgier, edgiest)
1Tense, nervous, or irritable: he became edgy and defensive...
- During a competition the fencers get nervous, edgy and temperamental under the pressure involved.
- Visitors, if they are not already dead choked by air pollution and bumpy roads, are always nervous and edgy at the thought of the traffic jams and missing a flight or a train.
- The city itself seems edgy and nervous, as can well be expected.
Synonyms
tense, nervous, on edge, highly strung, anxious, apprehensive, uneasy, ill at ease, unsettled, unstable;
excitable, twitchy, jumpy, keyed up, fidgety, restive, skittish, neurotic, brittle, hysterical;
sensitive, insecure;
irritable, touchy, tetchy, testy, crotchety, irascible, peevish, querulous, bad-tempered, short-tempered, hot-tempered, quick-tempered, temperamental, snappy, captious, crabbed, prickly;
British nervy
informal uptight, wired
British informal stressy
1.1(Of a musical performance or piece of writing) having an intense or sharp quality: tremendously edgy brass playing...
- But the flute and strings music I have downloaded all seem to show the sharp edgy sounds of the flutes.
- It starts with edgy trills from the soloist, but its overall direction of travel is into the silent darkness.
- Peter Kooy has a vocal quality that's a touch edgy, yet is plentifully musical.
2 informal At the forefront of a trend; experimental or avant-garde: their songs combine good music and smart, edgy ideas...
- Now he has produced another star turn in Speed-the-Plow, which requires a very different, much more edgy and sharp-tongued style.
- Although saddled with a convoluted plot, he has invested his film with enough grit, panache and edgy style to make it thoroughly gripping.
- Inside, too features a VW quality dash, which makes a break both from previous styling and the Focus' edgy style.
Derivatives
edgily
/ adverb ...- From the moment that he came out on to Downing Street to make his edgily staccato declaration of the beginning of the official campaign, he has come across as anything but a man swaggering to an easy victory.
- A nervy unease has gripped the campaign; no one is sure what's going on - tales of 1992 and 1970 are edgily retold.
- ‘Your father is well,’ Christiana snapped edgily.
edginess
/ noun ...- Most of all, you gradually realise that the edginess that has overshadowed you for your entire life has vanished, replaced with an inner peace you've read about but, until now, regarded as nothing but fiction.
- And much of the edginess is born of frustration.
- And here is the edginess of the Elizabethan Court, as Arthur and his relations, like many courtiers, are in and out of the slammer like a problem family on a housing estate.