war of nerves
noun
Simple meaning
A situation in which opposed parties refrain from direct conflict but maintain a tense.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wawruhvnurvzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwɔˈɹʌvˈnɝvz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
idiomaticby extension
A situation in which opposed parties refrain from direct conflict but maintain a tense, contentious relationship in which each uses annoyances or intimidating psychological tactics to attempt to dishearten and unnerve the other.
The use of psychological tactics to destroy the opponents' morale
idiomatic
Warfare characterized by psychological manipulation, involving tactics intended to demoralize, frighten, and unnerve opponents in order to prompt surrender.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A situation in which opposed parties refrain from direct conflict but maintain a tense, contentious relationship in which each uses annoyances or intimidating psychological tactics to attempt to dishearten and unnerve the other.
Used this way, war of nerves is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It turns up most in relationships contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Relationships
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.