fidgety
Americanadjective
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restless; impatient; uneasy.
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nervously and excessively fussy.
Etymology
Origin of fidgety
Explanation
Someone who's fidgety is jittery, restless, or anxious. It's pretty common to be a little fidgety before a big test or a job interview. A nervous airplane passenger might be fidgety, and a young child on the same flight could be fidgety simply because she's bored and itchy to move around. Fidgety comes from fidget, "move nervously," which in the late 1600s was the fidget, or the fidgets "uneasiness," from a now-obsolete verb, fidge, "move restlessly."
Vocabulary lists containing fidgety
Freak the Mighty
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Out of the Dust
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Patina
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"You have to know him. He's fidgety to begin with," Payton said.
From Barron's • Jan. 27, 2026
This equipoise held for four very productive years, but there comes a moment in all love stories when one partner gets fidgety and starts to pull away.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 4, 2025
There is a pleasing calm to her delivery that stands out in a scene of fidgety hams.
From New York Times • Mar. 26, 2024
As any percussionist or fidgety pen-tapper can tell you, different materials make different noises when you hit them.
From Science Daily • Mar. 7, 2024
He figured he would leave the house just at midnight, but he got so fidgety that he couldn’t wait that long, and around eleven-thirty he crept downstairs.
From "Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy" by Gary D. Schmidt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
