get on nerves
get on nerves
Meaning | Synonyms
- tick someone off
- being annoying for someone
- to become unbearable for someone
- to irritate someone to a great extent
- to bother and distract someone during work
- rub up the wrong way
Example Sentences
- Put your mobile phone in a silent mode – its loud ringtone is getting on my nerves.
- Stop laughing! You are getting on my nerves.
- Tom's idea to go swimming on the dirty beach was pathetic. He is getting on my nerves.
- It used to get on my nerves when I saw someone sleeping during the working hours.
- Whenever I go to study my younger sister starts getting on my nerves by crying so loud.
- I saw your best friend usually gets on your nerves, but you never resist her.
Origin
“Getting on someone's nerves” is a relatively new idiomatic expression which was initially used in 1922 by an Irish novelist James Joyce. He used the phrase in his modernist novel Ulysses in chapter 13 as:
“They would take their squalling baby home out of that and not get on her nerves.”
Since then the phrase became popular. And people started using it in their daily speech.