Word.ws English Dictionary

raw nerve

raw nerve noun: something about which one is uncomfortable or unconfident, which causes strong reaction when discussed or otherwise addressed.

Noun

raw nerve (plural raw nerves)

  1. Something about which one is uncomfortable or unconfident, which causes strong reaction when discussed or otherwise addressed.
    • When this last lover took off with all my power tools, I was outraged although I much wanted to act like it didn't matter, and I have embarrassed everyone around me by complaining about the phone bill, etc. I know that I am definitely not supposed to talk about this in any article, which is why I...1990 February 4, Chrystos, “Headaches And Ruminations”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 29, page 9

Forms of raw nerve

pluralraw nerves

Questions about raw nerve

What does raw nerve mean?
Raw nerve means something about which one is uncomfortable or unconfident, which causes strong reaction when discussed or otherwise addressed.
What part of speech is raw nerve?
Raw nerve is a noun.
What is the plural of raw nerve?
The plural of raw nerve is raw nerves.

Words near raw nerve in the dictionary

  1. raw materials
  2. raw milk
  3. raw milks
  4. raw mill
  5. raw mills
  6. raw nerve
  7. raw nerves
  8. raw papaya
  9. raw sewage
  10. raw sienna
  11. raw siennas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: raw nerve (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: “raw nerve.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/raw_nerve. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.