Word.ws English Dictionary

nerve-wracking

nerve-wracking is the alternative form of nerve-racking.

Meaning of nerve-racking

Adjective

nerve-racking (comparative more nerve-racking, superlative most nerve-racking)

  1. Intensely irritating or distressing to the nerves.
    • His own greeting was equally cordial. "Still exploring!" he cried, as he shook them by the hand. "We will hope your new experiences will not be so nerve-racking as our last."1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019
    Synonyms:
    gut-wrenching

Forms of nerve-wracking

comparativemore nerve-wracking
superlativemost nerve-wracking

Origin of nerve-wracking

1867, following earlier nerve-racking (1812).

Questions about nerve-wracking

What is nerve-wracking the alternative form of?
Nerve-wracking is the alternative form of nerve-racking.

Words near nerve-wracking in the dictionary

  1. nerve-shredder
  2. nerve-shredders
  3. nerve-shredding
  4. nerve-wrack
  5. nerve-wracked
  6. nerve-wracking
  7. nerve-wracks
  8. nerve-wreck
  9. nerve-wrecking
  10. nerve-wrecks
  11. nerved

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nerve-wracking (page history and authors); nerve-racking (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.

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Cite this entry: “nerve-wracking.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nerve-wracking. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.