When you feel antsy, you're restless and fidgety, like you have ants crawling on you and can't sit still. You might tap your pencil during a long assembly, bounce your leg under your desk, or keep checking the clock during the last minutes before recess.

The word captures that jittery, impatient feeling when you're waiting for something exciting or when you've been sitting too long and your body wants to move. A student might feel antsy on the bus ride to a field trip, or antsy in the waiting room before their turn at something fun. Sometimes you get antsy when you're nervous or anxious about something, and that nervous energy makes you need to fidget, pace, or move around.

Antsy is different from just wanting to do something else. It's that physical restlessness where your body won't cooperate with sitting quietly. When you say “I'm getting antsy,” you're describing that uncomfortable, can't-quite-settle feeling that makes you want to get up and do something, anything, to burn off that restless energy.