See nerve up on Wiktionary
{
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"ref": "1899, In the Court of Appeals of the State of New York: The People of the State of New York Versus John Schmidt, page 716:",
"text": "was that why you hit him with the hammer because you were nerved up?",
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"To make anxious."
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"(transitive) To make anxious."
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"ref": "1873, George Junkin, chapter XIII, in A Commentary upon the Epistle to the Hebrews, Philadelphia, Pa.: Smith, English & Co., […]; New York, N.Y.: Robert Carter & Bros., →OCLC, page 494:",
"text": "Man’s wrath He will restrain: and this faith is needed in times of persecution, such as the church was passing through, and such as these Hebrew believers must soon experience in all its bitterness. Thus he nerves them up for the dread conflict. What has he to fear who fights the good fight of faith under the banner of his glorious Captain?",
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"text": "Their influence goes far to nerve up the men to a constant fighting pitch, and no officer is tolerated away from his command unless sick or wounded.",
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"text": "To stand up in front of the large crowd and the TV cameras and ask his question had required some nerving up. Afterward, he said he felt as if he were on top of the world.",
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"Synonym of nerve (“to give courage or strength; to supply energy or vigour”)."
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"(transitive) Synonym of nerve (“to give courage or strength; to supply energy or vigour”)."
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"ref": "1992, Patricia Hampl, “Silence”, in Virgin Time: In Search of the Contemplative Life, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 199:",
"text": "I was still trying to nerve up to tell my dad I wasn’t going to Mass on Sunday anymore.",
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"ref": "1999, Ivan Doig, “The Springs”, in Mountain Time: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Scribner Paperback Fiction, published 2000, →ISBN, section 3, page 137:",
"text": "Like the flyways of rattled birds, America’s concourses were constantly crisscrossed with Baby Boomers trying to nerve up for the waiting bedside consultation, the nursing home decision, the choosing of a casket.",
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"ref": "2015, Elizabeth Lowell [pseudonym; Ann Maxwell], chapter 24, in Perfect Touch, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow, →ISBN, page 290:",
"text": "He looked at her face. It was grim and set, a person nerving up for the last of a grueling hike.",
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"To get courage or strength."
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"(intransitive) To get courage or strength."
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"word": "nerve up"
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"(transitive) To make anxious."
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"text": "Man’s wrath He will restrain: and this faith is needed in times of persecution, such as the church was passing through, and such as these Hebrew believers must soon experience in all its bitterness. Thus he nerves them up for the dread conflict. What has he to fear who fights the good fight of faith under the banner of his glorious Captain?",
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"text": "Their influence goes far to nerve up the men to a constant fighting pitch, and no officer is tolerated away from his command unless sick or wounded.",
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98,
108
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"text": "To stand up in front of the large crowd and the TV cameras and ask his question had required some nerving up. Afterward, he said he felt as if he were on top of the world.",
"type": "quote"
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"text": "I was still trying to nerve up to tell my dad I wasn’t going to Mass on Sunday anymore.",
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113,
121
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"ref": "1999, Ivan Doig, “The Springs”, in Mountain Time: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Scribner Paperback Fiction, published 2000, →ISBN, section 3, page 137:",
"text": "Like the flyways of rattled birds, America’s concourses were constantly crisscrossed with Baby Boomers trying to nerve up for the waiting bedside consultation, the nursing home decision, the choosing of a casket.",
"type": "quote"
},
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63
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"ref": "2015, Elizabeth Lowell [pseudonym; Ann Maxwell], chapter 24, in Perfect Touch, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow, →ISBN, page 290:",
"text": "He looked at her face. It was grim and set, a person nerving up for the last of a grueling hike.",
"type": "quote"
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],
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],
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"(intransitive) To get courage or strength."
],
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"word": "nerve up"
}
Download raw JSONL data for nerve up meaning in All languages combined (4.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-02 using wiktextract (e2469cc and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.