Citations:off one's hinge

English citations of off one's hinge

Prepositional phrase: "alternative form of off one's hinges"

						1917 1918 1928 1956 1958 1970 1986 1993	2001 2014 2017
ME «	15th c.	16th c.	17th c.	18th c.	19th c.	20th c.	21st c.

• 1917, Wallace Irwin, "Monkey on a Stick", The Saturday Evening Post, 29 December 1917, page 10:

  “Consie, have you gone completely off your hinge?” he gasped from the mattress upon which he had collapsed.

• 1918, Sewell Ford, The House of Torchy, page 321:

  "Huh!" I remarks to Vee. "Why not Maryjim or Daisybill? Say, I think our friend Amelia must have gone off her hinge."

• 1918, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Foe-Farrell, pages 156-157:

  "Maybe you're right, Jimmy," said I as we lit our pipes. "And if so, it's pretty ghastly....He's had enough to put him off his hinge. But somehow I can't bring myself—No, hang it! I've always looked on Jack as the sanest man I've ever known. If he has a failing it's for working everything out by cold reason."

• 1928, Chester K. Steele, The Great Radio Mystery, page 208:

  Why, Albro was quite off his hinge one time. They had to put him in a sanitarium.

• 1956, David Brock, "Chips", Victoria Daily Times (Victoria, BC), 23 April 1956, page 16:

  But it gives us a useful lead. Next time anyone dismisses me as a living fossil because I have ten years more experience than he has, plus a different concept of those three little tragedies called the Past, the Present and the Future, I shall say to him: "Listen to me, you psychopathic pseudo-modern, your Mental Health is no good. You're off your hinge, boy. Why not voluntarily submit to treatment? I will take you to the nearest radio station, where they know all about Mental Health. Come with me, my poor little invalid."

• 1958, The Pakistan Review, Volume 6, page 31:

  Thus placed, the "idealistic" individual either succumbs to socially inimical forces that are a gross negation of the group - ideal or may go off his hinge, –(semimad or full mad–neurotic or psychotic), or so frustrated as to create social turmoil and upheaval that ultimately have an unfortunate repercussion on the economic and political planes.

• 1970, Keith Laumer, The World Shuffler, page 120:

  “Oh, I see. The solitude has driven you off your hinge. Rather ironic, actually,” he added with a hollow chuckle.

• 1986, Richard Hoyt, Head of State, page 154:

  ‘It’s not like there’s an interstate highway across the Turkish border. Ali’s gotta be scrounging for the local cheese and free-lancing for himself. Kriss’s gotta be off his hinge.’

• 1993, Joan Aiken, Is Underground, page 129:

  Dr. Lemman glanced about him and went on in a low tone, "As a matter of fact, dearie, I have something of that kind to tell you now. So it's as well the old fellow is off his hinge."

• 2001, Jon Redfern, The Boy Must Die, unnumbered page:

  “He's got a couple of hysterical people in there with him. The mother is right off her hinge. She's brought along her boyfriend. Chief is trying to calm them down.”

• 2014, Sheila Dibnah, Champagne Steeplejack, unnumbered page:

  'Great things as an actress? Pah, I have never heard such nonsense! Great things, is it? Have you lost all gumption when it comes to this woman who's no better than a whore? Are you completely off your hinge?'

• 2017, Paul Hoffman, Scorn, page 157:

  ‘Accuse me of being off my hinge,’ he said — self-mockery was as important a skill to a copper as the art of interrogation — ‘but then, a nutter is what we’re dealing with.’