around the bend
- idiom
- Offensive
- She'd think I'd gone right around the bend.
- drives me around the bend
- gone completely around the bend
Examples
-
The sheepish, apologetic way he looked at me was driving me around the bend.
Fiction book (1999) -
That train's going to be comin' around the bend, so let's hop the freight.
-
But I say we avoid them and we launch around the bend there, okay?
-
The quad rider was alone coming around the bend, and I noticed he was not in full control of the vehicle.
Academic text (1996) -
Season six of Dexter has been the interminable retail shift, but I went into "This Is The Way The World Ends" with a positive attitude because I knew quitting time was just around the bend.
Blog text (11) -
I was positioned near a sharp, left-hand corner and was trying for shots of groups of quads coming around the bend, so my camera was set up for a fast shutter speed, probably 1/500 second, to freeze the action.
Academic text (1996) -
Nervous support crews, families on picnics, and hangers-on were down at the water's edge peering upriver for a glimpse of the next paddler to come around the bend.
Blog text (16) -
But Zoolander 2 is coming around the bend now, I guess, featuring the return of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson as male models Derek (who actually resurfaced recently at The Night of Too Many Stars) and Hansel.
Blog text (16) -
My neighbor's constant complaints about noise have driven me around the bend.
-
After weeks of isolation, she felt like she was going around the bend.
Synonyms
Odd in a funny or silly way
Strange and silly in a way people call crazy
Being a little crazy in a funny or strange way
A person who is not thinking or acting in a normal and safe way
Slightly strange in a funny, pleasant way
Silly in a way that is slightly funny
A person who behaves in a slightly crazy or silly way
A person who is not mentally well and often acts strangely
Used informally to describe someone who behaves in a strange or silly way
Slightly strange in the way a person thinks or behaves
Being silly and slightly crazy in a way that seems funny and harmless
Someone who behaves in a slightly strange or silly way
Not behaving in a normal or sensible way
Acting or feeling very silly and not thinking clearly, often as a joke
Being a little crazy or foolish
Acting strange or not thinking clearly
Funny in a strange or silly way
Acting in a strange, confused way and not thinking clearly
Very crazy or doing things that show bad judgment
Acting or feeling very strange
Acting very silly and not thinking in a sensible way
Someone who acts a little crazy
A bit crazy or silly in a strange way
Strange in a funny or slightly crazy way
Antonyms
How Crazy
Surface Forms
Morphology
around + the + bend
The idiomatic sense 'mentally unbalanced' does not follow from the literal meanings of 'around' (surrounding) and 'bend' (a curve), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would not reliably infer this meaning. This is a colloquial, metaphorical extension with no transparent compositional logic across languages, making the expression unpredictable for learners.
Etymology
Around the bend may come from the image of a road that turns. When you go around a bend you leave the familiar view and enter something strange, so the phrase came to mean 'crazy'.