nervous breakdown
"nervous-breakdown" is a 16-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“nervous breakdown” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 17
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An attack of a psychological disorder such as depression or anxiety so severe that it prevents a person from continuing to function normally
Corpus desk
Index EN-nervous-breakdown · nervous breakdown · English
nervous breakdown · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 17 letters
- VOW-6 6 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "N" 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.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | nervous breakdown |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 17 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “nervous breakdown” in English
Rare enough to double-check
nervous breakdown is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
nervous breakdown has no tracked misspelling variants, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is nervous breakdown, spelled N-E-R-V-O-U-S- -B-R-E-A-K-D-O-W-N.
Definition
- 1An attack of a psychological disorder such as depression or anxiety so severe that it prevents a person from continuing to function normally
- 2A psychological disorder usually characterized by panic attacks and aggressiveness, related to the Hispanic ataque de nervios.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how nervous breakdown appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
1887, George Gissing, Thyrza There was organic disease, and there was what is vaguely called nervous breakdown; it was too clear that Mr. Newthorpe must count upon very moderate activity either of mind or body henceforth.
1915, P. G. Wodehouse, Something New ...will you kindly think up at your earliest convenience some plan for politely ejecting this Mr Chalmers of yours from our humble home?--because if you don't, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.
Synonyms
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.