nerve

A nerve is connected to your body’s nervous system and your brain. Nerves are what allow you to have a sense of feeling in your body, whether that’s pleasure or pain.

• Tiny nerve endings in your fingers allow you to have a sense of touch.
• Without nerves a person wouldn’t have any sense of feeling in the body.
• Nerve damage can result from a physical injury or from extremely high or low temperatures.
• My neighbor, Dorothy, has some nerve pain in her feet.
• Bob has a nerve condition that causes him to feel physical discomfort very easily.
• A dentist gives a patient novocain to temporarily deaden the nerves that are responsible for tooth pain.

The word "nerve" is often used to describe a person’s personality or stamina.

• That must have hit a nerve. (That made someone feel upset.)
• That guy is getting on my nerves. (He’s bothering me.)
• You’ve got a lot of nerve. (You did something that made me mad.)
• That guy’s got a lot of nerve. (He does things that a person wouldn’t typically do.)
• Mountain climbing takes a lot of nerve. (It takes a lot of courage.)
• It takes a lot of nerve to get up on stage and sing in front of other people. (nerve = courage)
• It takes nerves of steel to be a firefighter.
• I don’t have the nerve to do that.

Click here to go to the Word of the Day page.

Date of publication: September 20, 2016