edgy
Americanadjective
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nervously irritable; impatient and anxious.
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sharp-edged; sharply defined, as outlines.
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daringly innovative; on the cutting edge.
adjective
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(usually postpositive) nervous, irritable, tense, or anxious
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(of paintings, drawings, etc) excessively defined
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innovative, or at the cutting edge, with the concomitant qualities of intensity and excitement
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of edgy
Explanation
If you're edgy, you're uptight, tense, or anxious. You might find yourself getting nervous and edgy right before you take a difficult test. A tendency to get edgy — irritable and jittery — might be a result of too much coffee, or just a personality trait. It's not a very helpful habit in most cases, leading you to snap at other people or just feel tense. An informal way to use edgy is to mean "experimental or daring." In the 18th century, something edgy literally had sharp edges, but by the early 1800s it came to mean "tense and irritable."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A bold, open-concept great room is the heart of the 3,504-square-foot home, where an edgy chef’s kitchen featuring a black-and-white, harlequin-tiled backsplash immediately catches the eye.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 14, 2026
"It's going to be really edgy," says Madrid's own F3 driver Bruno del Pino.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2026
She’s seen others pay a price for being edgy, so for breezy chitchat she sticks to asking about summer travel or new movies on Netflix.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Phil became an opera company and Disney an almost fullfledged opera house, staging Mozart’s three Da Ponte operas with sets by famed architects, beginning with Gehry, and costumes by edgy designers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
The resulting jangling, sparklingly dissonant sound, which is brittle, full of edgy attack and a kind of out-of-tune resonance, would have been - literally - unimaginable, even terrifying to audiences of the day.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Tyler, after a brief recovery period, returned to the recording studio with a huskier, edgier voice.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
“As product proliferation occurs in the edgier parts of the market,” says Dave Mazza, chief executive of ETF manager Roundhill Investments, “it’s incumbent on investors to do more homework.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
Some have rejected the film as flimsy satire; others have wanted its message to be edgier and more obvious.
From Salon ● Apr. 9, 2026
She worked alongside Christophe Loiron of Mister Freedom and other “rockabilly and edgier, slightly goth” kinds of people.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2025
Jason had been having the same feeling, but hearing Nico say it made him even edgier.
From "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan
Every Disney movie raises us to recognize that villains always get the best lines, the edgiest wardrobes and, sometimes, the most darling pets.
From Salon ● Jan. 28, 2026
I just, that kind of stuff and stand-up, you know, some comics look for the edgiest stuff, or the stuff that like is gonna be clickbait.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 18, 2025
The Aluminaire House, one of the earliest and edgiest examples of the International Style of modernist architecture in America, was never meant to withstand a harsh desert climate.
From New York Times ● Jan. 25, 2024
Roasts, of course, are known for comedians often gleefully showcasing their edgiest, most offensive and vile material.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 13, 2022
And there’s one of the edgiest tracks yet from the band — “Cutthroat,” an anthem about killing the critic inside of you.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 30, 2021
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
