Restless means you cannot sit still. The child on the third hour of a car journey, kicking the back of the seat; the man at the meeting clicking his pen; you at two in the morning, turning the pillow over again.
Two things drive it. One is the body — restless legs, restless fingers, a restless queue that keeps shuffling forward — and the other is the mind, which is the more interesting half: restless means bored with where you are and wanting something to change. A restless night is a night of broken sleep. A restless crowd is close to trouble. A restless spirit belongs to somebody who never stays in one town for long, and that is a compliment or a warning depending on who is saying it. The adverb is restlessly and the noun is restlessness.
1adjectiverestlessUnable to keep still or to relax.
“The children grew restless after an hour in the waiting room.”
2adjectivediscontentedWanting change; not content to stay where you are.
“After five years in the same office he was getting restless.”
synonyms: discontented, unsettled
3adjectivesleep(of sleep or a night) broken, with no real rest in it.
“She had a restless night and woke long before the alarm.”
Also accepted in games: fidgety
Restless is built the plain English way: rest plus -less, without rest. It comes straight down through Middle English restles from Old English ræstlēas, so the word has been assembled the same way since before the Norman Conquest. Nothing was borrowed and nothing was translated, which is why it lands so much softer than a word like agitated.
Old English
ræstlēas
Middle English
restles
English, today
restless
From Middle English restles, from Old English ræstlēas. From Middle English restles, restelees, from Old English ræstlēas, equivalent to rest + -less.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA