out of hand
176
4.8
- idiom
- Informal
:
irse de las manos
- Things are getting out of hand.
- get out of hand
- things got out of hand
- matters got out of hand
Don't let it just get out of hand, out of control.
- Don't let it just get out of hand, out of control.
- Then the things get out of hand real fast and you got to fix that.
- And yeah, I mean, it got out of hand.
- The idea stems from, you're right, locism has got completely out of hand.
- I did not, but I have suffered from a lightsaber battle that got out of hand.
- When we are driven by insecurities, it can be, it can get a little bit out of hand.
- And it's just whether we're smart in controlling it to work for us or if we if it gets out of hand and it controls us.
- And it was always those that got out of hand, they got on top of the table or they started a fight or whatever.
Examples
-
Over the Memorial Day weekend, things got a little out of hand at my place.
Fiction book (1996) -
Then the things get out of hand real fast and you got to fix that.
-
And so things got out of hand in our case.
-
The basis of it is if this gets out of hand, then what?
-
This is getting out of hand.
-
I think we can all agree that things got way out of hand at lunch today.
-
My life has gotten a little out of hand in the last week.
Fiction book (2000) -
I tried to let things calm down but the situation got out of hand unexpectedly.
-
We didn't mean for anything to get out of hand.
-
The discussion about the project got out of hand when people started yelling over each other.
Synonyms
47
4.9
Not able to be held back
17
6.1
To get worse very quickly and become hard to control
12
6.2
Hard to control or deal with
1
5.7
Too strong to be stopped or managed
Antonyms
How Controlled
405
2.5
- Informal
176
4.8
12
6.2
116
4.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
out + of + hand
The meaning 'not under control' is partly inferable because 'out of' signals removal and 'hand' can metaphorically mean control (cf. 'in hand' = manageable), so a learner knowing the words could plausibly guess a loss of control. However, the use of 'hand' as 'control' is a metaphorical extension that may not be immediately obvious to all B1 learners without prior exposure, so full predictability is limited.
Etymology
Out of hand comes from the image of something falling out of your hand. When it goes out of your hand, you can no longer hold or control it, so the phrase means 'not under control' or 'hard to manage'.