nervous breakdown
52
5.3
- noun
- /ˈnɜrvəs ˈbreɪkˌdaʊn/
- Informal
:
crisis nerviosa
- After months of stress at work, she finally experienced a nervous breakdown that required therapy.
- suffer a nervous breakdown
- lead to a nervous breakdown
Yes, a person can have a so-called nervous breakdown.
- Yes, a person can have a so-called nervous breakdown.
- My mum's had a nervous breakdown and we've ended up in, we've ended up in care.
- And I have to say, if anyone could have an internal nervous breakdown, I had one that day for sure.
- Please tell me it's perfectly all right when opening a restaurant to have not one but several nervous breakdowns, right?
Examples
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I'm having a total nervous breakdown.
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Or is my friend having a nervous breakdown?
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I mean, I had, I would say, a nervous breakdown during that.
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And I have to say, if anyone could have an internal nervous breakdown, I had one that day for sure.
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I promise not to have a nervous breakdown.
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I believe it's called a nervous breakdown.
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- I had a nervous breakdown once.
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I discovered it the year my mother had her nervous breakdown.
Fiction book (1992) -
I'm not having a nervous breakdown.
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He was the school's magic teacher until he had his nervous breakdown.
Synonyms
120
3.9
A sudden collapse of mental health that stops someone from functioning normally
3
6.3
A severe time when someone cannot manage daily life because of strong feelings
1
7.4
Extreme mental and physical tiredness after long stress or worry
Extreme mental and physical tiredness from stress that stops you from doing normal daily activities
Parts of the body and mind stop working properly because of stress or illness
How Severe
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly inferable from combining 'nervous' (anxious, relating to the nerves/mind) with 'breakdown' (a collapse or failure); together they describe a collapse of mental functioning. This adjective+noun composition is common cross-linguistically (e.g., Spanish 'colapso/crisis nerviosa') and follows transparent English composition patterns, so a B1 learner who knows both words is likely to understand the phrase.
Etymology
Nervous breakdown may come from the image of the mind as a machine: when someone's nervous system is under too much stress, it breaks down and the person can't work or cope. That's why the phrase now means 'a period of very bad stress that stops someone from living or working normally'.