as in breakdown
a mental or nervous collapse
you're going to have a nervous breakdown if you keep up that pace
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Recent Examples of nervous breakdown
Photo: Logan White Rose Byrne is a frightening revelation in this spiraling, hyper-anxious-making story of a mother going through a nervous breakdown.
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Taylor Antrim, Vogue, 3 Feb. 2025
That ethical dodge — congratulating modern progress, ignoring this era’s nervous breakdown — is the basic, political, insensitive reason that contemporary Hollywood cannot create love stories.
—Armond White, National Review, 25 Apr. 2025
The tale of a narcissistic corporate executive (Dern) whose nervous breakdown yields a convenient spiritual awakening, the show positions its protagonist in the morally fraught role of a whistle-blower doing the right thing for selfish reasons.
—Charlie Campbell, TIME, 24 Jan. 2025
The finale, a musical nervous breakdown, illuminates what’s been driving the character all along.
—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 31 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for nervous breakdown
Taylor Antrim, Vogue, 3 Feb. 2025
That ethical dodge — congratulating modern progress, ignoring this era’s nervous breakdown — is the basic, political, insensitive reason that contemporary Hollywood cannot create love stories.
—Armond White, National Review, 25 Apr. 2025
The tale of a narcissistic corporate executive (Dern) whose nervous breakdown yields a convenient spiritual awakening, the show positions its protagonist in the morally fraught role of a whistle-blower doing the right thing for selfish reasons.
—Charlie Campbell, TIME, 24 Jan. 2025
The finale, a musical nervous breakdown, illuminates what’s been driving the character all along.
—Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 31 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for nervous breakdown
Recent Examples of Synonyms for nervous breakdown
breakdown
Noun
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Here's a breakdown and a look at which can still win all four of them The Athletic’s Chelsea correspondents, Simon Johnson and Liam Twomey, had one of their cosy chats to talk about some of the issues surrounding the final.—
Simon Johnson,
New York Times,
28 May 2025
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The failure to adequately cover Biden’s decline points to a broader breakdown that has a simple explanation.—
Becket Adams,
National Review,
25 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Nervous breakdown.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/nervous%20breakdown. Accessed 3 Jun. 2025.
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