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Glite Dictionary
to bite one's nails

to bite one's nails

1 3.6
To chew your nails when you feel nervous
  • phrasal verb
translation icon : morderse las uñas
  • When I'm nervous, I bite my nails.
  • start biting her nails
  • watch him bite his nails

Examples

  • She unconsciously but ferociously bites her nails as she watches TV and talks on the phone.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • She became distraught and bit her nails to the quick.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • When you bite your nails, you give everything away.

    Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)

  • I'm just trying to stop biting my nails.

    Black Circle Boys (1997)

  • So I see you're still biting your nails.

    100 Feet (2008)

  • Cynthia is waiting in her bedroom, probably biting her nails.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Karen bites her nails.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Stop biting your nails.

    Rebecca (1940)

  • Don't bite your nails.

    Push (2009)

  • When I'm nervous, I bite my nails.

Synonyms

to gnaw
vsto bite one's nails
30 3.2

Bite or chew something again and again to make it smaller

is a repetitive nervous action focused on the fingernails
nibble
vsto bite one's nails
12 3.2

A small, gentle bite often made carefully by an animal or person

is done more from nervousness and targets the fingernails repeatedly

Antonyms

to calm
962 1.0

Make a person or animal less upset

How Nervous

to panic
272 2.3
to bite one's nails
1 3.6
to pace
83 3.0
to fidget
26 3.4

Surface Forms

bite one's nails infinitive
biting one's nails present participle
bites one's nails third person singular
bit one's nails past
bitten one's nails past participle

Morphology

bite + one + nail

The core meaning 'to chew one's fingernails' is directly and literally built from 'bite' + 'nail' with the possessive 'one's' indicating it is the speaker's own nails; the physical action is fully compositional. The common pragmatic extension that this behaviour signals anxiety is contextually inferable but not required for understanding the phrase, and the construction mirrors common reflexive actions in other languages, so it is transparent to a B1 learner who knows the constituents.

Etymology

The idiom bite one's nails comes from the simple, literal habit of people nervously bite the tips of their nails when they worry. So it now means 'to feel anxious' or 'nervous'.