“Get on Someone’s Nerves”
G-DRAGON — “Coup d'Etat”
💭 Meaning
To “get on someone’s nerves” is to annoy or irritate someone, often through repeated or persistent behavior.
✍️ Examples
Henry's student admitted that her younger sibling's constant interruptions during study sessions really got on her nerves.
The repetitive hold music while waiting for technical support started to get on Henry's nerves.
Henry's colleague's habit of rescheduling meetings last minute was starting to get on everyone's nerves.
📜 Origin
The phrase draws on the literal, physiological understanding of nerves as sensitive pathways that transmit sensation throughout the body, meaning something that “gets on" your nerves metaphorically irritates or agitates that sensitivity, much like a physical irritant would. As knowledge of the nervous system became more widely understood in the 19th century, “nerves" increasingly became shorthand in everyday English for emotional sensitivity or agitation (as in being “a bundle of nerves"). “Get on someone's nerves" emerged from this broader trend, becoming a common idiom by the late 19th and early 20th centuries to describe persistent annoyance.
