See touch a nerve in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for touch a nerve meaning in English (4.3kB)
{
"antonyms": [
{
"word": "strike a chord"
}
],
"etymology_text": "An allusion to the sharp sensation felt when a dentist or surgeon physically disturbs an exposed nerve.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "touches a nerve",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "touching a nerve",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "touched a nerve",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "touched a nerve",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "touch a nerve (third-person singular simple present touches a nerve, present participle touching a nerve, simple past and past participle touched a nerve)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"parents": [
"Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1951 August 27, “National Affairs: Right & Wrong”, in Time",
"text": "Louis B. Seltzer, editor of the Cleveland Press, . . . banged out an editorial that raised uncomfortable questions about the state of the U.S. at a moment of world responsibility. His piece touched a nerve: in the following week, 1,000 people had tried to reach him by phone or written him letters or stopped him on the street to talk about it.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1960, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 4, in Jeeves in the Offing",
"text": "The austerity of my tone seemed to touch a nerve and kindle the fire that always slept in this vermilion-headed menace to the common weal, for she frowned a displeased frown and told me for heaven's sake to stop goggling like a dead halibut.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2007 November 8, Simon Romero, “Gunmen attack opponents of Chávez's bid to extend power”, in New York Times, retrieved 2009-08-30",
"text": "The president's supporters . . . are trying to exert greater control over universities, touching a nerve among an increasingly defiant student movement.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To make a remark or perform a deed which produces a strong response, especially an emotional response such as anxiety or annoyance, because it calls to mind something which has been a source of concern or embarrassment."
],
"id": "en-touch_a_nerve-en-verb-24FhbNh2",
"links": [
[
"remark",
"remark"
],
[
"deed",
"deed"
],
[
"emotional",
"emotional"
],
[
"anxiety",
"anxiety"
],
[
"annoyance",
"annoyance"
],
[
"concern",
"concern"
],
[
"embarrassment",
"embarrassment"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To make a remark or perform a deed which produces a strong response, especially an emotional response such as anxiety or annoyance, because it calls to mind something which has been a source of concern or embarrassment."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "get on someone's nerves"
},
{
"word": "rub someone the wrong way"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "hit a nerve"
},
{
"word": "strike a nerve"
},
{
"word": "touch a raw nerve"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "een open zenuw raken"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "toucher la corde sensible"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "faire vibrer la corde sensible"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "zadétʹ za živóje",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"perfective"
],
"word": "заде́ть за живо́е"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"english": "step on a sore toe",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "trampa på en öm tå"
}
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-touch a nerve.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/20/En-au-touch_a_nerve.ogg/En-au-touch_a_nerve.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/En-au-touch_a_nerve.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "touch a nerve"
}
{
"antonyms": [
{
"word": "strike a chord"
}
],
"etymology_text": "An allusion to the sharp sensation felt when a dentist or surgeon physically disturbs an exposed nerve.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "touches a nerve",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "touching a nerve",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "touched a nerve",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "touched a nerve",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "*"
},
"expansion": "touch a nerve (third-person singular simple present touches a nerve, present participle touching a nerve, simple past and past participle touched a nerve)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "get on someone's nerves"
},
{
"word": "rub someone the wrong way"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"English terms with quotations",
"English verbs",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned",
"Translation table header lacks gloss"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "1951 August 27, “National Affairs: Right & Wrong”, in Time",
"text": "Louis B. Seltzer, editor of the Cleveland Press, . . . banged out an editorial that raised uncomfortable questions about the state of the U.S. at a moment of world responsibility. His piece touched a nerve: in the following week, 1,000 people had tried to reach him by phone or written him letters or stopped him on the street to talk about it.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1960, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 4, in Jeeves in the Offing",
"text": "The austerity of my tone seemed to touch a nerve and kindle the fire that always slept in this vermilion-headed menace to the common weal, for she frowned a displeased frown and told me for heaven's sake to stop goggling like a dead halibut.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2007 November 8, Simon Romero, “Gunmen attack opponents of Chávez's bid to extend power”, in New York Times, retrieved 2009-08-30",
"text": "The president's supporters . . . are trying to exert greater control over universities, touching a nerve among an increasingly defiant student movement.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To make a remark or perform a deed which produces a strong response, especially an emotional response such as anxiety or annoyance, because it calls to mind something which has been a source of concern or embarrassment."
],
"links": [
[
"remark",
"remark"
],
[
"deed",
"deed"
],
[
"emotional",
"emotional"
],
[
"anxiety",
"anxiety"
],
[
"annoyance",
"annoyance"
],
[
"concern",
"concern"
],
[
"embarrassment",
"embarrassment"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To make a remark or perform a deed which produces a strong response, especially an emotional response such as anxiety or annoyance, because it calls to mind something which has been a source of concern or embarrassment."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "En-au-touch a nerve.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/20/En-au-touch_a_nerve.ogg/En-au-touch_a_nerve.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/En-au-touch_a_nerve.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "hit a nerve"
},
{
"word": "strike a nerve"
},
{
"word": "touch a raw nerve"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "een open zenuw raken"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "toucher la corde sensible"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "faire vibrer la corde sensible"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "zadétʹ za živóje",
"sense": "Translations",
"tags": [
"perfective"
],
"word": "заде́ть за живо́е"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"english": "step on a sore toe",
"lang": "Swedish",
"sense": "Translations",
"word": "trampa på en öm tå"
}
],
"word": "touch a nerve"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.