highly strung
/ˌhʌɪli ˈstrʌŋ
/adjective British
Very nervous and easily upset: highly strung horses...
- And as you can imagine, the more highly strung a horse is, the harder it is to get them to stay still and jump over large obstacles without knocking them down.
- I'm highly strung, I can't sleep because of the stress and it's generally having a huge negative influence on me as a person.
- Dick's parents split and he was brought up by his highly strung mother, who got him hooked on his most permanent and incurable addiction - Jungian therapy.
Synonyms
nervous, excitable, temperamental, sensitive, unstable, brittle, easily upset, easily agitated, on edge, edgy, jumpy, keyed up, irritable, fidgety, restive, restless, anxious, overanxious, tense, taut, stressed, overwrought, neurotic;
British nervy
informal uptight, twitchy, wired, wound up, het up
British informal strung up, stressy
Australian/New Zealand informal toey
dated overstrung