on pins and needles

1. In a state of anxiety or tense expectation: “Jackie was on pins and needles waiting to hear about her job application.”

Idioms and Phrases

Nervously anxious, as in He was on pins and needles, waiting for the test results. The graphic expression pins and needles for the tingling sensation experienced in recovering from numbness was transferred to a feeling of marked mental uneasiness about 1800.

Example Sentences

“We were all on pins and needles,” Missy says.

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“Everybody was on pins and needles,” the counselor said at the hearing.

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Although the Mossad’s intelligence and the Israel Defense Forces’ rapid establishment of air superiority inside Iran proved to be nothing less than extraordinary, my wife and I lived on pins and needles for those first few days of the war.

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Since Trump’s takeover, Kennedy Center watchers have been on pins and needles about what the schedule might look like.

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"We're all on pins and needles and have been anxiously sitting by our phones, staring at the TV, having the radio going - trying to stay as informed as possible because there wasn't a good system in place," said Ms Alvarez-Petit, who lives in West Los Angeles.

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Related Words

• anxious 
• apprehensive 
• edgy 
• excitable 
• fidgety 
• jumpy 
• panicky www.thesaurus.com
• restless 
• shaky 
• skittish 
• spooked www.thesaurus.com
• tense 
• uneasy 
• uptight