fidgety
Americanadjective
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restless; impatient; uneasy.
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nervously and excessively fussy.
Etymology
Origin of fidgety
Explanation
Someone who's fidgety is jittery, restless, or anxious. It's pretty common to be a little fidgety before a big test or a job interview. A nervous airplane passenger might be fidgety, and a young child on the same flight could be fidgety simply because she's bored and itchy to move around. Fidgety comes from fidget, "move nervously," which in the late 1600s was the fidget, or the fidgets "uneasiness," from a now-obsolete verb, fidge, "move restlessly."
Vocabulary lists containing fidgety
Freak the Mighty
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Out of the Dust
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Patina
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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.
Fidgety and intent, Mikhail Gorbachev sat on the edge of his leather chair in the presidential box near the front of the Kremlin Hall of Meetings.
From Time Magazine Archive
Satchmo had warmed up, as usual, on a few bars from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana, then for an hour they had lazed through old favorites like Basin Street Blues, Fidgety Feet and Sugar.
From Time Magazine Archive
Fidgety, he may peek out the window to see who is coming up the street.
From Time Magazine Archive
Fidgety Comic Robert Benchley, whose chief claim to charm is that he seems to be in a perpetual, ingratiating hangover, launches the picture.
From Time Magazine Archive
Fidgety fingers played with pencils or raised their desk lids.
From Loyal to the School by Brazil, Angela
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.
