on edge
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Feeling anxious or nervous
Literally: physically on the edge of something
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
But her sister was not with her, and while Fabia prayed again that Barney would be all right, she felt on edge, and a need to get moving.
There was an undertone to the words that set Caroline's teeth on edge.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “on edge” mean?
Feeling anxious or nervous Literally: physically on the edge of something
Is “on edge” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.