high-strung

Related to high-strung: forewarning

high-strung

Persistently anxious and easily startled or upset. Primarily heard in US. I've never met anyone so high-strung. She gasps every time the phone rings.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • highly
  • highly-strung
  • strung
  • nervy
  • squirrelly
  • shaken up
  • linger on
  • on (one's) heels
  • on heels
  • at/on somebody's heels
References in periodicals archive
Vrettos's skill is such that readers will be pulled entirely into Dylan's psychic visions and the high-strung, pretend normality with which the town functions when The Drifter returns.
The different segments of the audience laugh at different bits to varying degrees: Israelis when Kilimnick replaces common Hebrew words with similar sounding ones with completely different meanings; and olim when he does an impression of the high-strung Israeli response to his attempt at customer service at the popcorn store where he works.
Entertainment attorney Steven Paul Mark presents Drift, a high-strung thriller novel about Max LaFollette, an unemployed ex-Marine who says the wrong thing at the wrong time to Imperium Solutions, a powerful oil company that is utterly ruthless in exercising its mysterious agenda.
However, events take an unexpected turn as her high-strung employer's many problems begin to have an adverse effect.
HIGH-STRUNG mother Adelle Tullian (Bello) travels from New York to a remote area of Wales with her teenage daughter Sarah to stay with her husband, James (Bean), in a wind-beaten farmhouse close to the sea.
HIGH-STRUNG Adelle Tullian travels from New York to a remote area of Wales with her teenage daughter Sarah to stay with her husband, James, in a wind-beaten farmhouse close to the sea.
Forgive yourself if you've ever thought that "hypertension" meant "high-strung." Don't feel bad if you've confused digoxin, a heart failure drug, with dioxin, a toxic chemical.
Sunday, Ta-Da presents "High-Strung," an all-studio showcase celebrating the anniversary.
High-strung mother Adelle Tullian (Bello) travels from New York to a remote area of Wales with her teenage daughter Sarah (Stuckey) to stay with husband, James (Bean), in a wind-beaten farmhouse close to the sea.
High-strung mother Adelle Tullian (Bello) travels from New York to a remote area of Wales with her teenage daughter Sarah (Stuckey) to stay with her husband, James (Bean), in a wind-beaten farmhouse close to the sea.
He can be so intense and high-strung, so full of kinetic energy., that the sheer performance of his speeches--he never writes them out, just talks off-the-cuff can be distracting, like watching snakes fighting in a bag.
High-strung artists might consider having a crowd of visitors invade their space at this crucial time an annoyance, but this group of fifth graders handle the crowd easily.
Mark practiced gently holding the high-strung animal until he was a master handler.
Year CURVE was born, according to the Zodiac calendar: the Year of the Goat, which makes us creative, esoteric, disorganized, emotional and high-strung
Harvard University psychologist Jerome Kagan found that about 20 percent of babies are born with a high-strung temperament, detectable even in the womb by a fast pulse.