antsy
/ˈæn.tsi/
antsy adjective: restless, apprehensive and fidgety.
Adjective
antsy (comparative antsier, superlative antsiest)
- restless, apprehensive and fidgety
- The children were antsy and worried […]1990, John Updike, Rabbit at Rest
- For hating it so much, she's remarkably nomadic. In the last four years, she's moved at least eight times. "I get very antsy," she explains. "I don't like to be in one place for too long. But I settle in each time. I do like a house to be a home."1993 November, Lynn Hirschberg, “Brat on a Hot Tin Roof”, in Vanity Fair
Forms of antsy
| comparative | antsier |
|---|---|
| superlative | antsiest |
Origin of antsy
From ants + -y, as in ants in one's pants. First noted as a rural Southern US figure of speech in the early 20th century.
Words formed from antsy
Questions about antsy
- What does antsy mean?
- Antsy means restless, apprehensive and fidgety.
- What part of speech is antsy?
- Antsy is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce antsy?
- Antsy is pronounced /ˈæn.tsi/.
Words near antsy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: antsy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-antsy.ogg.
Cite this entry: “antsy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/antsy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.