get on someone's nerves

verb

"get-on-someone-s-nerves" is a 19-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“get on someone's nerves” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
23
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To annoy or irritate someone; to bother someone.

Corpus desk

Index EN-get-on-someone-s-nerves · get on someone's nerves · English

get on someone's nerves · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 23 letters
  • VOW-8 8 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "G" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for get on someone's nerves
PropertyValue
Headwordget on someone's nerves
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters23
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “get on someone's nerves” in English

get on someone's nervesranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

get on someone's nerves is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To annoy or irritate someone; to bother someone.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for get on someone's nerves in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is get on someone's nerves, spelled G-E-T- -O-N- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E-'-S- -N-E-R-V-E-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    To annoy or irritate someone; to bother someone.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how get on someone's nerves appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. There’s an insect buzzing around in my bedroom tonight, and it’s really getting on my nerves.
  2. Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out of that and not get on her nerves...

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "get on someone's nerves"?
"get on someone's nerves" is spelled G-E-T- -O-N- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E-'-S- -N-E-R-V-E-S.
What does "get on someone's nerves" mean?
As a verb, "get on someone's nerves" means: To annoy or irritate someone; to bother someone.
What language does "get on someone's nerves" come from?
"get on someone's nerves" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list