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 outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a verb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
23
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To annoy or irritate someone; to bother someone.

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)

Where “get on someone's nerves” sits in English frequency

get on someone's nerves falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

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

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for get on someone's nerves is 23 letters long, classified as a verb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "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.

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.

Using “get on someone's nerves”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is G-E-T- -O-N- -S-O-M-E-O-N-E-'-S- -N-E-R-V-E-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source

Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list