nerve
/nəːv
/noun
1A whitish fibre or bundle of fibres in the body that transmits impulses of sensation to the brain or spinal cord, and impulses from these to the muscles and organs: the optic nerve...
- Once you're infected, the virus spreads from your muscle to your peripheral nerves to your spinal cord and brain.
- The axons of both classes of interneuron enter the brain via the ocellar nerve, which also carries the axons of efferent neurons.
- The sciatic nerve is the largest nerve in the body.
Synonyms
nerve fibre
technical axon
2 (one's nerve or one's nerves) One’s steadiness and courage in a demanding situation: an amazing journey which tested her nerves to the full he kept his nerve and won five games in a row...
- So at this precise moment where others would lose their nerve, bottle and audience, he did what separates mere amateurs from The Greats like himself.
- While the 34-year-old golf unknown kept his nerve on a tough final day at Rochester, the shakers and movers of world golf crumbled behind him.
- But it's so easy to lose your nerve and your voice to the people who are shouting the loudest, even if you know in your heart what they are shouting is garbage.
Synonyms
self-confidence, confidence, assurance, self-assurance, coolness, cool-headedness, self-possession;
courage, bravery, pluck, pluckiness, boldness, courageousness, braveness, intrepidity, intrepidness, fearlessness, valour, daring, dauntlessness, doughtiness, gameness;
determination, strength of character, firmness of purpose, will power, spirit, backbone, fortitude, mettle, heart, endurance, tenacity, resolution, resoluteness, stout-heartedness, steadfastness, staunchness, hardihood
informal grit, guts, spunk, gumption, gutsiness
British informal bottle, ballsiness
North American informal moxie, cojones, sand
vulgar slang balls
3 (nerves) Feelings of nervousness: his first-night nerves soon disappeared...
- I don't normally get stage fright or nerves before a performance but today I'm like a child on Christmas Eve.
- First-night nerves aside, what she fears most is being left alone… without her Tim.
- He was visibly, rather endearingly, anxious, shaking with nerves at some points; she kept erupting into fits of maniacal chuckles at some secret joke.
Synonyms
anxiety, tension, nervousness, nervous tension, strain, tenseness, stress, worry, cold feet;
apprehensiveness, apprehension, jumpiness, fright
informal butterflies (in one's stomach), collywobbles, the jitters, the willies, the heebie-jeebies, the shakes, the jumps, jim-jams, the yips
British informal the (screaming) abdabs/habdabs
Australian rhyming slang Joe Blakes
4 [mass noun] informal Impudence or audacity: he had the nerve to insult my cooking [in singular]: she’s got a nerve wearing that short skirt with those legs...
- He, that horrible horrible man, had the nerve to nuzzle her neck!
- Someone even had the nerve to ask me why I did what I did that morning, suggesting there was something odd or wrong in my daringly unconventional and intensely original appearance.
- I haven't had the nerve to tell her I'm also crushing on him.
Synonyms
audacity, cheek, barefaced cheek, effrontery, gall, temerity, presumption, presumptuousness, boldness, brazenness, impudence, impertinence, insolence, pertness, forwardness, front, arrogance, cockiness
informal face, neck, brass neck, brass, sauce
North American informal chutzpah
informal, dated hide
British informal, dated crust
rare procacity, assumption
5 Botany A prominent unbranched rib in a leaf, especially in the midrib of the leaf of a moss.
verb (nerve oneself)
Brace oneself mentally to face a demanding situation: she nerved herself to enter the room...
- She developed a particular interest in helping to update the Internet pages and she seemed to be nerving herself to buy her first computer so that she could get on the Internet at home.
- I concentrated on an image of Autumn's exquisite, frightened visage, nerving myself.
- They flinch at the sound of that laugh, but they keep edging forward, nerving themselves for the final rush.
Synonyms
brace oneself, steel oneself, summon/gather/screw up/muster one's courage, screw one's courage to the sticking place, gear oneself up, prepare oneself, get in the right frame of mind;
fortify oneself, bolster oneself
informal psych oneself up
literary gird (up) one's loins
Phrases
a bag (or bundle) of nerves
get on someone's nerves
have nerves of steel
live on one's nerves (or one's nerve ends)
strain every nerve
touch (or hit) a nerve (or a raw nerve)
war of nerves
Derivatives
nerved
/ adjective [usually in combination]: he was steely-nerved after the accident...
- I look up at the circles traced by a great swinging, lurching bucket and its nerved riders, and the playing track's identity comes to me: Rod Stewart's ‘Downtown Train’.
Origin
Late Middle English (also in the sense 'tendon, sinew'): from Latin nervus; related to Greek neuron 'nerve' (see neuron).