How to use unnerve in a sentence

13 example sentences · verb

Unnerve means to deprive of nerve, force, or strength; to weaken; to enfeeble. Compare enervate. Example: “I was greatly unnerved by the news that my attacker was back in the country.”

Examples of unnerve by meaning

verbTo deprive of nerve, force, or strength; to weaken; to enfeeble. Compare enervate.

to unnerve the arm

verbTo make somebody nervous, upset, alarm, shake the resolve of.

I was greatly unnerved by the news that my attacker was back in the country.
But new immigration is no longer the primary driver of the growing racial, ethnic and religious diversity that unnerves much of the GOP coalition.2021 April 23, Ronald Brownstein, “The racist ‘replacement theory’ has it all backward”, in CNN

More sentences with unnerve

The politician was unnerved by the journalist's quick-fire questioning.From the entry quick-fire
It’s a little unnerving until you get the hang of the system and then it’s all G.2007 September 6, Starr Begley, “Don of Pizza”, in Maui Time Weekly, volume 11, number 11, page 14. From the entry it's all g
He loved to unnerve his lairding brother.2013, Victoria Roberts, chapter 18, in X Marks the Scot, Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks Casablanca, →ISBN, page 194. From the entry laird
That article just unnerved me to no end.1980 April 19, Nancy J. Biancamano, “Misanthropy”, in Gay Community News, page 4. From the entry to no end
The situation was unnerving, and dangerous.2020 June 15, Eva Holland, “In a Crisis, We Can Learn From Trauma Therapy”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 15 Jun 2020. From the entry unnerving
It still feels unnerving to some, even those caught in the crossfire, to see injuries invented wholesale and lies accepted by the highest court in the land.2023 June 30, Melissa Gira Grant, “The Supreme Court Doesn’t Care That the Gay Wedding Website Case Is Based on Fiction”, in The New…. From the entry wholesale
That Sedgwick's case for foundationalist gayness incorporates both the arguments and the premises avowed by Stock and the other gender criticals would likely unnerve everyone except for Reed.2023, Grace Lavery, “The Egg and the Essay”, in Pleasure and Efficacy: Of Pen Names, Cover Versions, and Other Trans Techniques…. From the entry gender critical
Under the archbishop's ceiling, the self is not a clockwork orange programmed by the state but something more unnerving: Peer Gynt's onion, layers of performance without a core.2004, Enoch Brater, Arthur Miller's America: Theater and Culture in a Time of Change. From the entry clockwork orange
Angela Randall was not afraid of the dark, but driving home at this dreich hour and at the end of a difficult shift, she found the ectoplasmic fog unnerving.2004 June 3, Susan Hill, chapter 1, in The Various Haunts of Men (A Simon Serrailler Crime Novel), London: Chatto & Windus, →ISBN, page 4. From the entry dreich
A gnawing worry that I would be taken for a Greenpeacer, or that someone would point me out as a fraud and throw me off the ship unnerved me.1986, Guy Wright, Sons and Seals: A Voyage to the Ice. From the entry Greenpeacer

Meaning of unnerve

verb To deprive of nerve, force, or strength; to weaken; to enfeeble. Compare enervate.
verb To make somebody nervous, upset, alarm, shake the resolve of.

Full definition of unnerve

Questions about unnerve in a sentence

How do you use unnerve in a sentence?: Unnerve is used as a verb. For example: “I was greatly unnerved by the news that my attacker was back in the country.”
What is a short sentence with unnerve?: “to unnerve the arm”
What does unnerve mean?: Unnerve means to deprive of nerve, force, or strength; to weaken; to enfeeble. Compare enervate.

Adapted from Wiktionary: unnerve (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use unnerve in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/unnerve. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.