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
In “The Social Reckoning,” the heroes are brilliant, eccentric, sarcastic, edgy and arrogant; the villains are brilliant, eccentric, sarcastic, edgy and arrogant; the subsidiary characters are brilliant, etc.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
"He has played midfield with England and Liverpool... but he is not a midfielder," insisted Mourinho after his side's edgy 2-1 win.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
But Adrian is never far from his thoughts or absent from the screen: this smiling, happy boy slowly transforming into an edgy, troubled young man whose sweetness still occasionally shines through.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 16, 2026
Don’t know why I got edgy ’bout it.
From "Girls Like Us" by Gail Giles
Now that we’ve confirmed that a somewhat edgier choice is better than a well-intentioned embarrassment, we should file away this memory and never speak of it again.
From Salon ● Sep. 15, 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
"If it was edgy to do jeans for November 1988, I think it was even edgier for her to do Madonna," says Amy Odell, author of Anna: The Biography.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2025
Volpe began to dabble in somewhat edgier fare, beginning with Pippin, a dark and existential musical inspired by the story of Charlemagne’s rebellious son.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
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
One of the edgiest is a former tobacco factory in the gritty Athens neighborhood of Kolonos whose pink and yellow facade has drawn comparisons to a giant Battenberg cake.
From New York Times ● Jun. 30, 2022
Charlotte has never been the edgiest tool in the box, but I know she reads Vogue, where style can mean pants.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 10, 2021
“Ted Lasso,” for example, “isn’t the edgiest show. It’s a feel-good show and something that, apart from a couple parts here and there, could easily be a broadcast show.”
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 14, 2021
German actor Udo Kier has worked with some of cinema’s edgiest renegades, from Andy Warhol and Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Gus Van Sant and Lars von Trier.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 11, 2021
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
