Dictionary

as nervous as a witch en · ADJ

Meanings

1. (Northeastern, US, especially, not-comparable) Very nervous or restless.
   • The nerves often get clogged up, or choked up, both inside and outside: they get clogged up by humours settling on them, [...] and you become as nervous as a witch. Then again, the nervous fluid. what used to be called the animal spirits, or the marrow of the nerve, get thick and clogged; and all obstruction in it must be forced out. 1871, Donald Kennedy, Kennedy on diseases of the skin, page 94:
   • […] "a pinch always makes me start up as nervous as a witch, and I never could talk sense during an electric storm. I feel nervous now just to think of it." 2021 November 5, Henry Pettit, A Twentieth Century Idealist, Good Press:

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