Word.ws English Dictionary

nervous nelly

nervous nelly is the alternative spelling of nervous Nellie.

Meaning of nervous Nellie

Noun

nervous Nellie (plural nervous Nellies)

  1. (informal) A person whose personality and behavior are characterized by worry, insecurity, and timidity.
    • Political opponents doubted his capacity, referred to him as "too nervous, too worried a little man," and remarked that his Senatorial colleagues used to refer to him humorously as "Nervous Nellie."1925 January 19, “Gentlemen Asleep”, in Time, archived from the original on 01 Mar 2009

Noun (1) capitalized: Nervous Nelly

Nervous Nelly (plural Nervous Nellies)

  1. (alternative) Alternative spelling of nervous Nellie.

Noun (2) capitalized: nervous Nelly

nervous Nelly (plural nervous Nellies)

  1. (alternative) Alternative spelling of nervous Nellie.

Forms of nervous nelly

pluralnervous nellies
pluralNervous Nellies
pluralnervous Nellies

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 a noun.
What is the plural of nervous nelly?
The plural of nervous nelly is nervous nellies.

Words near nervous nelly in the dictionary

  1. nervous breakdowns
  2. nervous hit
  3. nervous hits
  4. nervous nellie
  5. nervous nellies
  6. nervous nelly
  7. nervous nineties
  8. nervous pudding
  9. nervous Purvis
  10. nervous Purvises
  11. nervous system

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.