Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun slang Extreme nervousness or anxiety; terror; heebie-jeebies.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Its a sad sad day when this political correctness crap makes poeple worried about something they say or write in case it causes screaming abdabs, which it appears to have done in your case.

    Go! Now! Start! Dave Hingsburger 2007

  • Some toys give me the screaming abdabs but I also feel I ought to allow them to play with them, so I try to keep out of it and let it go on around me without voicing a judgment, but there again, I'm fairly sure they're not dim enough not to realise when I'm judging my little heart out.

    OMG SUN ailbhe 2008

  • Small wonder that cooking at Christmas can bring on a nasty attack of the screaming abdabs.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Stevie Parle 2011

  • I’m not big on numbers Osama but once late at night I worked out the odds on my husband getting blown up one day and ever since then I had the screaming abdabs all on my own.

    Incendiary Chris Cleave 2005

  • They don’t show it on the news any more on account of it would give people the screaming abdabs.

    Incendiary Chris Cleave 2005

Comments

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  • the jitters

    April 14, 2008

  • oooh!

    April 14, 2008

  • A variation is habdabs. But I still like fantods best. :-)

    April 15, 2008

  • Habdabs is nice. Like a nervous hobnob. *added*

    April 15, 2008