1. Characterized by jumps or sudden movements from one thing or state to another.
1869. Daily News, 25 Nov., 5/3. ‘O Paradise’ was thus sung to a jumpy measure in six-eight time.
1893. Scot. Leader, 15 July, 3. The stock markets were in that condition best described as ‘jumpy,’ though the jumps were generally in the downward direction.
2. Characterized by sudden involuntary movements caused by nervous excitement.
1879. A. Forbes, in Daily News, 21 Aug., 5/3. Nothing … makes a man so jumpy and nervous as a good steady rain of shell-fire.
1894. Doyle, Round Red Lamp, 11. It made me jumpy to watch him.
b. Producing nervous excitement.
1883. Burton & Cameron, Gold Coast, I. iii. 75. The people seem to delight in standing, like wild goats, upon the dizziest of ‘jumpy’ peaks.
1896. Westm. Gaz., 11 Jan., 3/1. The adventure which might be called the most ‘jumpy.’
Hence Jumpiness, the state or condition of being jumpy.
1899. Sydney Morning Herald, 10 Nov., 2/1. There was … a careless jauntiness and jumpiness of movement.
1897. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., II. 854. There is, indeed, a general condition of jumpiness and nervousness.
