Nerve-racking

adj

adj ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

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.""

Adjective

1
extremely irritating to the nerves wordnet

Synonyms

distressing fraught grating gut-wrenching hairy harrowing

Example

"That test was so nerve-racking."

Etymology

1812.

Related phrases

nerve-rackingly

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.