/ɡɛt ɒn ˈsʌmwʌnz ˈnɜːvz/
English idiom, informal. To annoy or irritate someone.
Draft Not yet checked by a native English speaker.
How do people use Get on someone’s nerves
?
Informal but safe almost anywhere, including at work. The person goes in the middle: “you’re getting on my nerves”, “it got on her nerves”. The continuous form (“is getting on my nerves”) is the one people reach for when the annoyance is building right now.
Get on someone’s nerves
in real sentences
-
Tom gets on my nerves.
Tatoeba, sentence by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
-
It got on my nerves.
Tatoeba, sentence by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Get on someone’s nerves
come from?
The image is literal: something rasping at your nerves until they’re raw. English Wiktionary gives no date for the idiom. Its quotation comes from James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), where Gerty wishes a squalling baby wouldn’t “get on her nerves”. When it was first used is anybody’s guess from these sources.
Mistakes learners make with Get on someone’s nerves
None for English speakers. For learners of English: dropping the plural. It’s always “nerves”: “you get on my nerves”, never “you get on my nerve”.
Other English idioms like Get on someone’s nerves
Spot a mistake in Get on someone’s nerves
?
Send a correction, or a sentence you’d actually say with it. Everything is read before anything on this page changes.