nerven
German, verb
nerven is spelled N-E-R-V-E-N (6 letters) and appears 32 times per million words in written German, the 2,594th most frequent German word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Nerven is a German verb meaning “to annoy, to irritate” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With a capital, Nerven is a different word: “plural of Nerv”. The German Wiktionary defines it as “jemanden anhaltend belästigen, jemandem auf die Nerven gehen”.
What does nerven mean in English?
verb
- 1
informalto annoy, to irritate
Es nervt mich.
noun
- 1
plural of Nerv
Source: English Wiktionary, German section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How German dictionaries define it
verb: 1. jemanden anhaltend belästigen, jemandem auf die Nerven gehen
The definition in the German Wiktionary, in German.
Source: German Wiktionary, dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of nerven
- nervt present singular third-person
- nervte past
- genervt participle past
- haben auxiliary
- nervend participle present
- nerve first-person indicative present
- nervst indicative present second-person
- nervest second-person singular subjunctive
- nervet plural second-person subjunctive
- nervten first-person indicative plural
- nervtest indicative preterite second-person
- nervtet indicative plural preterite
- nerv imperative second-person singular
- habe genervt first-person indicative multiword-construction
- haben genervt first-person indicative multiword-construction
- nerve! imperative singular
- nervt! imperative plural
- genervt haben active infinitive perfect
Source: English Wiktionary and German Wiktionary (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
English words that translate to nerven
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is nerven in German?
nerven appears 32 times per million words in written German.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).