nerve

«nerve» in Mova's school dictionary: One of the long thin fibres in the body that carry… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a nerve, nerves)

meaning for a pupil

1) One of the long thin fibres in the body that carry messages between the brain and other parts, so we can feel and move. tree →

2) (nerve, uncountable) Courage to do something difficult or scary: «It took nerve to jump». tree →

3) (nerves) Feeling worried or nervous: «exam nerves». tree →

4) Rude boldness: «What a nerve!» tree →

5) To ache in every nerve means to feel sore and tired all over your body. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons on the body: the brain, spinal cord and nerves make up the nervous system; nerves send signals so you feel pain or heat and pull your hand away. In stories and sport: «lose your nerve», «hold your nerve», «get on someone's nerves» (annoy them), «nerves of steel».

examples

• Nerves carry messages from your skin to your brain. tree →
• The dentist numbed the nerve in my tooth. tree →
• It took a lot of nerve to sing on stage alone. tree →
• She lost her nerve at the top of the diving board. tree →
• I always get nerves before a test. tree →
• My brother's noisy game gets on my nerves. tree →
• He had the nerve to take my seat! tree →
• It must have lasted fully two hours, and Little Toomai ached in every nerve, but he knew by the smell of the night air that the dawn was coming. tree →

note

The adjective is «nervous» (worried), not «nervy» (which can mean bold or jumpy). «Nerves» (plural) often means worry. The «funny bone» is really a nerve in your elbow, not a bone.

In the corpora

• Nerves make breath short and the voice shaky, even in good singers; slow breathing before singing helps calm the voice.
• The human body has about 30 trillion cells of many kinds, such as skin, bone, muscle, nerve and blood cells.
• Each time you practise something, the connections between the nerve cells involved get stronger, so the memory gets easier to find.
• Menthol in mint switches on the nerve sensors that detect cold, so the mouth feels cool though it is not colder.
• The adult brain weighs about 1.4 kilograms and has about 86 billion nerve cells, each connected to thousands of others.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «nerve» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.