Dictionary

nerve-wreck en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (alt-of, alternative) Alternative form of nerve rack.
   alt of nerve rack
   • It stands not far under these circumstances from the lunatic asylum and leaves a memory of nerve-wreck, or even of cowardice, which does not minister to self-respect. 1908, The Lancet, page 410:
   • Plunging deep in trauma and nerve-wreck after surviving a Nazi' shelling in one of the felled London streets. 2003, Achife Francis, The Priest: Nil, →ISBN, page 1:
   • The result as we saw it was a terrible one, and we could fancy the nerve-wreck of Charles Baudelaire, before the bow snapped, from the ravaged picture before us. 1920, Martin Birnbaum, Oscar Wilde: Fragments and Memories, page 15:
2. A person who is debilitated by stress.
   • Behold the triumph of hypnotic mystification by the might of which the vacuous become profound and the flabby-willed nerve-wreck a heroine of dauntless faith! 1911, The Literary Digest - Volume 42, page 684:
   • He was a nerve-wreck. 1979, Anwar Sadat, Raphael Israeli, The public diary of President Sadat - Volume 3, →ISBN, page 1041:
   • It wouldn't happen again, for not one in a hundred of your Squadron-Leaders is a nerve-wreck. 1978, Harford Montgomery Hyde, Solitary in the ranks: Lawrence of Arabia as airman and private soldier:

Forms