to spiral out of control
17
6.1
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
descontrolarse
- "It's hard to understand how it spiraled out of control that quickly."
- a crisis could spiral out of control
And I think I was spiralling, spiralling out of control up until that point.
- And I think I was spiralling, spiralling out of control up until that point.
- And the more I submitted, the more things spiraled out of control, but the more peace I had internally.
- So how do you compete with costs that are spiraling out of control?
- It's it's like they want to put you around in circles so that you spiral out of control.
- And then my life spiraled out of control after that because my ex missus, she abandoned me.
- And, you know, perhaps, you know, these are journeys that began with good intentions, but, you know, trajectories that spiral out of control.
- We will be able to manoeuvre, maybe send weapons, maybe impose more sanctions, maybe deploy some troops to make sure this doesn't spiral out of control.
- I would say fed ideas where they think, I generally think at the beginning they think it's a good idea and then it spirals out of control.
- Well, after my my dad died, I just spiraled out of control myself, sabotaged everything and I just, I became obese.
Examples
-
Containing such wars before they spiral out of control will save future American lives.
Academic text (1999) -
Things are spiraling out of control.
-
I saw my whole life just spiral out of control.
-
That military intelligence wanted the whole situation to spiral out of control.
-
The national debt continues to spiral out of control, and they did nothing.
Blog text (25) -
We can see how this becomes a vicious cycle and can easily spiral out of control.
Blog text (21) -
The situation appears to be deteriorating and could spiral out of control.
Academic text (2009) -
There's a very serious issue spiraling out of control in this country.
-
As war rages, and with no clear road to peace, bodies are mounting up and the human cost is spiraling out of control.
-
The argument escalated quickly and began to spiral out of control.
Antonyms
How Controlled
405
2.5
- US
75
4.3
80
4.4
155
2.8
- Informal
289
7.5
- Informal
17
6.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
The element 'out of control' is transparent (not manageable), but 'spiral' contributes a metaphorical sense of rapid, accelerating escalation rather than a literal circular motion. A B1 learner who knows the words might infer loss of control but would not reliably predict the intensified/rapidly worsening nuance, so the expression is only partially compositional.
Etymology
The phrase spiral out of control gives the picture of a tight spiral turning faster and moving out until nothing can stop it. That's why it means 'to get worse fast and be impossible to control'.