off one's nut

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Prepositional phrase

off one's nut

1. (chiefly British, dated in US, idiomatic) Insane, crazy.
   • 1909, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 17, in Mike: A Public School Story:

     Old Smith was awfully bucked because he'd taken four wickets. I should think he'd go off his nut if he took eight ever.

   • 1914, Zane Grey, chapter 13, in The Rustlers of Pecos County:

     "[I]f I was to spring this news in Mr. Wright's hearin', why, such a sensitive, high-tempered gentleman as he would go plumb off his nut."

   • 1918, Rex Ellingwood Beach, chapter 11, in The Winds of Chance:

     "Look at them rapids ahead of us! Why, the guy that laid out this river was off his nut!"

Synonyms

• off one's rocker (US)

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary