antsy
Americanadjective
-
unable to sit or stand still; fidgety.
The children were bored and antsy.
-
apprehensive, uneasy, or nervous.
I'm a little antsy since hearing those storm warnings.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of antsy
Explanation
If you're antsy, you're restless and fidgety. It's hard not to be antsy when you're waiting to learn whether or not you've been accepted to your first choice of colleges. An antsy kid, unable to sit still, might need to use the bathroom, and a worried parent is often antsy while she waits for her teenager to come home late at night. Antsy came first, in the 1830s, but the idea is similar to the 20th century expression "have ants in your pants." Imagine how you'd squirm if you actually did feel ants crawling around in your pants: figuratively, that's how it feels to be antsy.
Vocabulary lists containing antsy
Look Both Ways
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Popcorn
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Mississippi Trial, 1955
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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:
“I think people are antsy about it, because they just don’t know whether Warsh will come up and surprise us,” Tang said.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 18, 2026
After 28 years of watching World Cups from football's wilderness, there was never much danger of the Tartan Army getting antsy about the gridlock on the road to Foxborough.
From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026
The scariest man in music these days is a trim, antsy, matter-of-fact ex-physicist named Mikey Shulman.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 28, 2026
Investors are getting antsy about a credit bubble and contagion effects cross the $20 trillion industry.
From Barron's ● Feb. 20, 2026
“Hey, I think I’m going to grab a drink,” Martin says, jumping up again in that antsy Martin way.
From "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli
In an expensive hotel room touched with old-fashioned elegance, a husband and wife growing ever antsier in each other’s company keep the floor-length drapes drawn against the City of Light.
From New York Times ● Oct. 12, 2022
But Scherzer is different — antsier, too consumed with all this to sit still even if he has fielded those bunts a thousand times.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2022
But as night fell, the crowd grew larger and antsier.
From Seattle Times ● May 18, 2022
Have the regulators gotten antsier in your view?
From The Verge ● Aug. 17, 2021
His next restaurant is called Next, and it sprang from the antsier impulses of a chef who gets bored easily.
From Chicago Tribune ● Feb. 15, 2011
Definitions 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.
