unnerve

From un- +‎ nerve.

• IPA^(key): /ʌnˈnɜː(ɹ)v/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)v

unnerve (third-person singular simple present unnerves, present participle unnerving, simple past and past participle unnerved)

1. To deprive of nerve, force, or strength; to weaken; to enfeeble. Compare enervate.

   to unnerve the arm

2. To make somebody nervous, upset, alarm, shake the resolve of.

   I was greatly unnerved by the news that my attacker was back in the country.

   • 2021 April 23, Ronald Brownstein, “The racist ‘replacement theory’ has it all backward”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     But new immigration is no longer the primary driver of the growing racial, ethnic and religious diversity that unnerves much of the GOP coalition.