adjective
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nervous or apprehensive
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moving jerkily or fitfully
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of jumpy
Explanation
Someone who's jumpy is anxious and jittery. If you've ever been so nervous that you couldn't sit still, you know how it feels to be jumpy. This informal adjective is perfect for describing the sort of anxiety you can't hide. If you're shifting in your seat, crossing and uncrossing your legs, and nervously tapping your fingers on your knees as you wait to give a speech, you're jumpy. Jumpy also means "bumpy," as when you take a jumpy bike ride along a rocky, unpaved road.
Vocabulary lists containing jumpy
Long Way Down
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Elijah of Buxton
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The Night Diary
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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.
“The market is very, very jumpy when it comes to the risks to foreign demand” for Treasurys, said Thomas Simons, a money-market economist for Jefferies in New York.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 30, 2026
As rates retreated from recent highs, investors have gotten jumpy at reports of troubled corporate borrowers.
From Barron's • Mar. 25, 2026
The logistical obstacle course they would need to navigate for the evacuation included soothing jumpy horses, scrambling for last-minute cargo flights and navigating Belgian bureaucracy.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 14, 2026
Walk around it, and the shifting, light-reflective and -absorbent white forms create an uncanny illusion of the pillar in jumpy, unstable motion.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 25, 2025
I didn’t want to take my diary out in front of everyone and have Papa see, but it’s a habit now, a jumpy feeling that starts in my fingers at night.
From "The Night Diary" by Veera Hiranandani
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.
