Meaning & use
high-strung person
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
Someone who is easily upset, worried, or excited, and whose feelings or nerves are quickly stirred.
Grammar: Countable: you can say a high-strung person or two high-strung people; the adjective stays the same.
Patterns
- a high-strung person
- be high-strung
- get high-strung about something
He's a high-strung person who can't relax even on holiday.
As a high-strung person, she finds loud parties exhausting rather than fun.
My high-strung colleague jumps at every small noise in the office.
Common combinations
- a highly strung child
- The teacher is gentle with the highly strung child in her class.
- nervous and high-strung
- After weeks of exams he was nervous and high-strung.
- a high-strung temperament
- Her high-strung temperament makes surprises hard for her.
- seem high-strung
- He seems high-strung whenever deadlines get close.
Synonyms and how they differ
- tense
- Tense means nervous and unable to relax right now, often because of a specific situation, while high-strung describes a lasting part of someone's character.
- jittery
- Jittery suggests shaky, restless nerves, often from caffeine or fear, and is more temporary than high-strung.
- excitable
- Excitable means easily made lively or enthusiastic, which can be positive, whereas high-strung usually suggests a strain on the nerves.
Opposites
Word family
- high-strung adjective
- The adjective itself, used before a noun or after a linking verb.
- strung out adjective
- Informal and stronger: exhausted or badly affected by stress or drugs.
Commonly confused: high-strung person or high-maintenance?
high-strung person vs high-maintenance
High-maintenance means needing a lot of attention or effort, often about money or demands; high-strung is about nervous sensitivity, not demands.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'high-strung' most naturally?
Choose one answer.
'High-strung' is an adjective describing a nervous, easily upset person, so it fits option A. Option B contradicts the meaning, and C and D wrongly use it as a verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “high-strung person”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.