Nervate

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To provide or supply with nerves or nerve fibers in a biological context ; to cause a person to feel uneasy or anxious
2. To imbue tissue or a structure with nerves ; to provoke anxiety or nervousness in someone
3. To furnish an organism part with nerve cells ; to induce feelings of nervousness or worry

Etymology: "Nervate" is formed from "nerve" with the suffix "-ate," a common English ending for verbs that means to supply with or cause to have the thing named. To nervate, then, is to supply with nerves, as when a body part or structure becomes equipped with the fibres that carry sensation and signals. The word belongs to the vocabulary of anatomy and biology, where its sense is fairly literal. The second sense, to provoke anxiety or nervousness in someone, is a looser extension of the same idea: an action that gives a person "nerves" in the figurative sense of unease or jitteriness. Because the word is a plain formation on an existing noun, its meaning follows directly from the parts it is built from.