adjective
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nervous or apprehensive
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moving jerkily or fitfully
Other Word 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
This time, the soloist was the stellar emerging pianist Yunchan Lim, who keeps to himself, either lost in dreamy reverie or, like a jumpy teenager, in ferocious attack mode.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 19, 2026
“People get real jumpy wherever they see a large black vehicle.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 11, 2026
When he did, colleagues thought he seemed jumpy, wired, unfocused.
From "Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War" by Steve Sheinkin
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.
