> as lemmas

1602 B. Jonson Poetaster Induct. sig. A2 Light, I salute thee; but with wounded nerues . View more context for this quotation

1742 A. Pope New Dunciad 56 Racks and Tortures soon shall..Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense.

1764 O. Goldsmith Traveller 12 Those powers that..Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame.

1801 M. Edgeworth Angelina iv, in Moral Tales II. 85 Not the fittest companion in the world, for a person of your ladyship's nerves.

1842 Ld. Tennyson Walking to Mail in Poems (new ed.) II. 51 What know we of the secret of a man? His nerves were wrong.

1879 R. Browning Martin Relph 56 We soldiers need nerves of steel!

1927 Daily Tel. 1 Nov. 7 The correspondence about the dramatic version of ‘The Secret Agent’..is almost interminable. One sees that Conrad lived on his nerves, as the French say, and that he took a secret delight in parading his petty cares.

1972 M. Shadbolt Strangers & Journeys xxiv. 527 ‘Of course I've bloody well tried,’ I snapped, and then was sorry. My nerves were ragged.

1989 Mod. Painters Autumn 74/1 Modernism..condemns its artists to live on their nerves, without any tradition to have recourse or reference to or any conventions to rebound off.