jittery

adjective

jit·​tery ˈji-tə-rē How to pronounce jittery (audio)
1
: suffering from the jitters
2
: marked by jittering movements
jitteriness noun

Examples of jittery in a Sentence

I always get jittery when I have to give a speech. The latest economic news has made some investors jittery.
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Back in his Talking Head-fronting days, the euphoria was the jittery kind. Seth Abramovitch, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2025 And Kiritsis, as Skarsgård plays him (with a jittery but logical fast-talk fervor that makes this one of the actor’s two or three most potent performances), is a very different figure than the real Tony Kiritisis, who was older and more visibly deranged. Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 2 Sep. 2025 But then the crowds swelled to the tens of thousands, and the security state got jittery. Michael Schuman, The Atlantic, 26 Aug. 2025 The three-month employment trend paints a picture of a jittery economy as consumers, small businesses and corporate executives fret about the potential impact of Trump’s unpredictable trade war, along with other destabilizing policies like mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Dave Goldiner, New York Daily News, 1 Aug. 2025 See All Example Sentences for jittery

Word History

First Known Use

1931, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of jittery was in 1931

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Cite this Entry

“Jittery.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jittery. Accessed 9 Sep. 2025.

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