unnerve
/ʌnˈnəːv
/verb [with object]
Make (someone) lose courage or confidence: (as adjective unnerving) an unnerving experience...
- Its tone is one of parlour room titillation blended with out and out Lynchian weirdness - a fantastically inventive and darkly funny film that unsettles and unnerves the audience.
- But then I do, but the temporary panic has unnerved me, and I worry about where I've put the keys.
- After the grace and concern of the Arabs, this jolt of American culture unnerved me.
Synonyms
demoralize, discourage, dishearten, dispirit, deject, daunt, cow, alarm, frighten, unman, dismay, distress, disconcert, discompose, perturb, upset, discomfit, take aback, unsettle, disquiet, jolt, startle, fluster, agitate, shake, ruffle, throw, throw off balance, put someone off their stroke, cause someone to lose their composure, confound, panic, stupefy, stun
informal rattle, faze, put into a flap, throw into a tizz, discombobulate, shake up
British informal put the wind up
Derivatives
unnervingly
/ adverb ...- With a seat in the cabinet at the age of 36 (the youngest woman to achieve such a position), an unnervingly quick mind for figures and a reputation for self-assured flair in all of her jobs, Kelly could make anyone feel like an underachiever.
- They were both handsome men, but Grandpa's brother looked VERY MUCH like one of my friend's from high school… unnervingly so… and let me tell you, my friend's last name was not Bull!
- They seem archetypically familiar, but are unnervingly modern, with ironic and nostalgic nods to Gothic fairy tales, '50s iconography, and classic mythology.