Off-the-wall

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Wildly unconventional; bizarre; absurd. idiomatic

    "What kind of a harebrained, off-the-wall idea is that?"

  2. 2
    Of a person's behaviour: greatly inappropriate. idiomatic

    "All of their friends were amazed that they were familiar with a war hero. Some began to understand Chips' moods and drinking. His "off the wall" behaviour at times. And unknowingly they were "forgiving" him."

Adjective
  1. 1
    conspicuously or grossly unconventional or unusual wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bizarreeccentricflakeyflakyfreakishfreaky

Example

More examples

"What kind of a harebrained, off-the-wall idea is that?"

Etymology

Perhaps from baseball or other games played with a ball, alluding to unpredictable bounces; but compare also bounce off the walls.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.