7 Silly Words to Describe Nervousness

Feeling nervous is no laughing matter, as anxieties can take a toll on a person’s mental state. But there is something related to nervousness that is worth laughing about, and that’s the silly words so often used to refer to those jitters. Many of these terms look funny when written down and can sound zany when spoken aloud, too. So let’s take a look at some downright goofy terminology used for nervous people and feelings — you’ll likely notice a common source that many of these terms come from.

The term “worrywart” refers to someone who’s predisposed to fretting, often over things that aren’t worth worrying about. It was coined in 1929 in the comic strip Out Our Way by cartoonist J.R. Williams. A character was nicknamed “Worry Wart” by his unsympathetic older brother — that Worry Wart character got his own spinoff series of comics.

If you stew over little things, you may be called a fussbudget. This term has been used since the late 19th century to refer to fidgety people; it joins other now-archaic terms from that era such as “fussbox” and “fusspot,” meaning the same thing. Like “worrywart,” this term also has a connection to the world of comic strips. In Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, the character of Lucy was often called a fussbudget.

You don’t have to be named Nellie to be called a “nervous Nellie.” This nickname came about in the 1910s, but there’s no evidence that it was in honor of a real-life Nellie. Instead, whoever coined it likely chose the name for the alliteration. The term gained steam in the 1920s, when it became the nickname for U.S. Senator Frank B. Kellogg, who was known for his nervous, visible tics and overly cautious demeanor.

You’d be hard-pressed to find any word that looks and sounds more ridiculous than the term “flibbertigibbet,” which is “a silly, flighty person.” However, it was originally used in different contexts. It comes from the Middle English term “flepergebet,” which refers to a gossip, and it was also used by Shakespeare in King Lear as a name for the devil. But the predominant use today is referring to someone who rambles on, often because they feel nervous and can’t keep their mouth shut.

Someone who has the heebie-jeebies might feel quite jittery, often due to feeling creeped out. This phrase was coined in 1923 by yet another cartoonist, Billy De Beck, creator of the comic Barney Google. It popped up in the comic from October 26, 1923, in which Barney was lamenting his horse Spark Plug’s inability to win races: “You dumb ox — Why don’t you get that stupid look offa your pan — you gimme the heeby jeebys!” The term was used many times in the comic strip thereafter, but it’s since come to be used in the context of scared nervousness. Someone might say that walking down a dark street gives them the heebie-jeebies.

The screaming meemies are “a heightened state of panic or anxiety,” and while the term may sound silly, it comes from a serious place — the battlefield. In World War II, Germans used a rocket launcher known as the 15-cm Nebelwerfer 41 (Nebelwerfer translates as “smoke thrower”), which U.S. soldiers nicknamed the “Screaming Meemie.” This nickname came from the shrill sound that the artillery made when raining down from the skies at its fretful targets.

The Victorian-era slang term “jimjams” likely entered the English lexicon to specifically describe the violent delirium caused by drinking too much. This was known as delirium tremens, and “jimjams” might have evolved as a variant of that phrase. Beyond that theory, the origin of the term isn’t really known, but today, “jimjams” can be used to refer to jitters in general.