lot of nerve

a lot of nerve

1. A great amount of courage, resolve, or integrity. It must have taken a lot of nerve to stand up to your boss like that. I'll warn you know—you've got to have a lot of nerve to take on such a powerful lobbying firm.
2. Rude, impertinent, or brazen audacity. You've got a lot of nerve walking in here after the way you spoke to me last time. I've given him chance after chance, but he keeps on betraying my trust. What a lot of nerve.
See also: lot, nerve, of
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

*lot of nerve

 
1. Fig. great rudeness; a lot of audacity or brashness. (*Typically: have ~; take ~.) He walked out on her, and that took a lot of nerve! You have a lot of nerve! You took my parking place!
2. Fig. courage. (*Typically: have ~; take ~.) He climbed the mountain with a bruised foot. That took a lot of nerve. He has a lot of nerve to go into business for himself.
See also: lot, nerve, of
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • a lot of nerve
  • some nerve
  • take a lot of nerve
  • take a lot of nerve (to do something)
  • take some nerve (to do something)
  • you've got a lot of nerve
  • bottle it
  • bottle out
  • lose (one's) bottle
  • get up (one's) nerve (to do something)
References in periodicals archive
Twitter user Louisa said: "The Catholic Church has a hell of a lot of nerve talking about what's harmful to children, buddy."
The "Rojiblanco" central defender knows that it will be a confrontation with a lot of nerve. When it is Messi's turn, Gimenez explains how he thinks the Argentine star must be faced.
The Gastroenterologists had sort of a gut feeling about it, but the Neurologists thought the Administration had a lot of nerve.
MPs have underinvested in our Armed Forces for decades, but it takes a lot of nerve to make an implicit threat of war in the same week that you are also planning the next round of savage cuts.
Davies, we get it, and you've got a lot of nerve in this golden age of fussy celebrity-chef cookbooks.
It takes a lot of nerve to shake up a Democratic primary featuring a 20-year incumbent, especially one with a Dallas institution like Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson.
You have something to do which requires a lot of nerve but it should turn out to be a lot easier than you had anticipated, so have confidence.
What television images of him addressing the Brazilian showed was him saying Marcelo had a lot of nerve, or "mucho morro," the club said.
She's got her pet bug, a good mind, a lot of nerve, and a determination to run away.
IT takes a lot of nerve -or arrogance - to fiddle about with a classic Shifting in time and place a work of genius, such as setting Hamlet in gangster-ridden 1920s America, always smacks of a second-rate theatre director desperate for cheap publicity.
"I've got a lot of nerve!" the 16-year-old Felix Mendelssohn wrote in 1826 as be set out to write his overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream.
A press release, for example, begins: "'Ted Strickland's got a lot of nerve,' campaign manager Barbara Briggs said after more bogus charges from the perennial candidate." Briggs' title and her tirade may have made her sound like a campaign staffer, but House financial records indicate that she was on McEwen's congressional payroll at the time, earning $43,000.
It takes a lot of nerve for the leader of the most privileged group of workers to stand up in public and make such claims when there are close to 100,000 unemployed and thousands of families are depending on food banks.
"This movie certainly has a lot of nerve," the New York Post quoted Hathaway, 27, as telling Vogue magazine.