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jittery

UK/ˈd͡ʒɪt.ɹi/US/ˈd͡ʒɪt.ə.ɹi/
adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,185 of 15,258leans spoken

Jittery means nervous and shaky. Feel jittery, a jittery market, jittery hands.

It is physical as well as emotional — caffeine and adrenaline both produce it, and the shaking is real. Of markets it means prone to sudden moves on small news. Note the jitters, meaning nerves; and that jitter in engineering means small irregular variation in timing.

Definitions of jittery

  1. 1adjectivejitteryNervous and shaky.B2+

    “I always feel jittery before I have to speak in public.”

jittery is a state of nerves.

Where it comes from

From jitter + -y.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Body Language & Gestures

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jittery in the wild

  • The movement of reptiles with this ailment appears jittery and wooden, and the head movement will be greatly restricted.

    Spinal osteoarthropathy

  • Jules made the film by shooting live footage, then printing the film out on paper and scanning it to create a jittery animation-like effect.

    The Tragic Story of Nling

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.