Nervous-nellie

adj, slang

adj, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Characterized by worry or anxiety; having a weak, insecure personality. informal, not-comparable

    "1993, David Ansen, "Goodbye, Mr. Gibson (film review of The Man Without a Face)," Newsweek,, 30 Aug, 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."

  2. 2
    Alternative spelling of nervous-Nellie. alt-of, alternative, not-comparable
  3. 3
    Alternative spelling of nervous-Nellie. alt-of, alternative, not-comparable

Example

More examples

"1993, David Ansen, "Goodbye, Mr. Gibson (film review of The Man Without a Face)," Newsweek,, 30 Aug, 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."

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