Word.ws English Dictionary

nervous-nelly

nervous-nelly is the alternative spelling of nervous-Nellie.

Meaning of nervous-Nellie

Adjective

nervous-Nellie (not comparable)

  1. (informal) Characterized by worry or anxiety; having a weak, insecure personality.
    • Woody Allen plays his most frazzled variation on the Woody we know best: a nervous-Nellie urban neurotic kvetching his way through life as a means of avoiding it.1993, David Ansen, "Goodbye, Mr. Gibson (film review of The Man Without a Face)," Newsweek,, 30 Aug

Adjective (1) capitalized: Nervous-Nelly

Nervous-Nelly (not comparable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative spelling of nervous-Nellie.

Adjective (2) capitalized: nervous-Nelly

nervous-Nelly (not comparable)

  1. (alternative) Alternative spelling of nervous-Nellie.

Questions about nervous-nelly

What is nervous-nelly the alternative spelling of?
Nervous-nelly is the alternative spelling of nervous-Nellie.
What part of speech is nervous-nelly?
Nervous-nelly is an adjective.

Words near nervous-nelly in the dictionary

  1. nervous tissue
  2. nervous tissues
  3. nervous wreck
  4. nervous wrecks
  5. nervous-nellie
  6. nervous-nelly
  7. nervouser
  8. nervousest
  9. nervously
  10. nervousness
  11. nervousnesses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nervous-nelly (page history and authors); Nervous-Nelly (page history and authors); nervous-Nelly (page history and authors); nervous-Nellie (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: “nervous-nelly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nervous-nelly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.