- impatient
- impatient, nervous, unquiet, restless, restive, uneasy, fidgety, jumpy, jittery are comparable when they mean manifesting signs of unrest or an inability to keep still or quiet.Impatient implies an inability to bear some trial (as delay, opposition, discomfort, or stupidity) with composure; it therefore connotes, as a rule, not physical but mental or emotional unrest and may suggest unrestrained reactions (as of eagerness, irritableness, brusqueness, testiness, or intolerance){
so tedious is this day as is the night before some festival to an impatient child that hath new robes— Shak.
}{cease your contention, which has been too long; I grow impatient— Pope
}{when we pursue the ulterior significance of the colors into yet wider regions ... I fear the august common sense of the Occident becomes affronted and impatient— Binyon
}{the temper of the youth of his country is violent, impatient, and revolutionary— Fischer
}Nervous implies unsteadiness of nerves and a proneness to excitability{a nervous, fretful woman
}{you and I, whose ordinary daily talk maintains its slow or hurried, nervous or phlegmatic ... but always pedestrian gait— Lowes
}{becoming more nervous as the gloom increased— Hudson
}Unquiet, though basically meaning no more than not quiet, is usually used with a strong implication of prolonged or conspicuous agitation or of troubling or disturbing distractions that hinder one's peace of mind or spirit or prevent concentration; the word is applicable both to the person and to the thing which troubles him{these unquiet times
}{unquiet meals make ill digestions— Shak.
}{they have not the restless unquiet temperament associated with the Anglo-Saxon race— Alfred Buchanan
}Restless usually implies constant and more or less aimless motion or activity; often, specifically, it connotes mental agitation{our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee— Pusey
}{indubitably not happy . . . restless and disquieted, his disquietude sometimes amounting to agony— Arnold
}or eagerness to change{he was restless and dissatisfied with his life— Anderson
}or continuous or unceasing movements to and fro or back and forth{the restless sea
}{a restless crowd
}{he was as restless as a hyena— De Quincey
}Restive (see also CONTRARY 2), which once meant unwilling to move, has gradually become a synonym of restless. In this sense it implies impatience under attempts to restrain, to control, or, especially, to keep attentive and suggests either inability to keep still or to persist in what one is doing{they were all becoming restive under the monotonous persistence of the missionary— Cather
}{as restive and dissatisfied as a party of 7 bridge players— Eddington
}Uneasy usually implies restlessness born of anxiety, doubt, uncertainty, or insecurity{he is uneasy over business conditions
}{an uneasy conscience
}{an uneasy sense that all was not well with his family
}{uneasy lies the head that wears a crown— Shak.
}{so we come down, uneasy, to look, uneasily pacing the beach. These are the dikes our fathers made: we have never known a breach— Kipling
}{the first uneasy stir of the sleeper— Mumford
}Fidgety implies restless movements resulting from nervousness, boredom, or uneasiness of mind; it usually suggests an inability to keep one's hands, feet, or body still or to settle down to a task or occupation{toward the end of the day the pupils become fidgety
}{he declared if I was fidgety he should have no comfort— Burney
}{he perhaps did not realize . . . that the persons who felt fidget
}or disquieted about the matter were not likely to write in about it, lest they appear irreverent— E. B. Whitey Jumpy and jittery imply extreme nervousness that exhibits itself in tremulous, uncertain movements.Jumpy, however, usually suggests a fearful or apprehensive mood and lack of control over one's temper as well as over one's muscles{if you didn't drink so much, you wouldn't be so jumpy— Barnaby Conrad
}Jittery suggests domination not only by fears but by recollections that destroy one's nervous control and impair one's mental stability{soldiers still jittery from their experiences under heavy fire
}{the chief factor in making children jittery is jittery parents— Time
}Analogous words: fretful, querulous, *irritable, snappish, waspish: *eager, anxious, avid, keen: impetuous, *precipitate, headlong, hasty, sudden, abruptAntonyms: patient
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
