to nerves jangle
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
estar nervioso
- His nerves jangle before every important presentation.
Examples
-
She felt her nerves jangle as she waited for the test results.
-
She felt her nerves jangle at the prospect of flying down that hill.
Blog text (23) -
His nerves jangled; he imagined fish with large teeth swarming down there.
Fiction book (1994) -
I could feel my nerves jangle when I realized I had forgotten my lines.
Synonyms
4
8.6
Feeling very nervous and confused about something
Antonyms
How Nervous
Surface Forms
Morphology
The expression links 'nerves' (anxiety) with 'jangle' (a discordant rattling sound) by a sound-to-feeling metaphor, so a learner who knows both words can plausibly infer a sense of agitation or being on edge. However, the mapping from a literal noisy sound to an internal emotional state is figurative and somewhat idiomatic, so the meaning is not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
Nerves jangle gives the image of thin metal or small bells that jangle. They hit each other and make a sharp, annoying sound that makes you jump. When that sound hits your nerves, they feel tense and shaky, so the phrase means 'to feel anxious or on edge'.