Round the bend

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Meaning

Irrational, extremely eccentric, or overwhelmed to the point of losing one's composure. Informal. Drive someone round the bend often describes exasperation without making a lasting claim about that person; directly labelling someone round the bend can be insulting and stigmatizing. Regional use: Chiefly British; around the bend also occurs in North American English.

Origin

F. C. Bowen's Sea Slang (1929) defined round the bend as an old naval term for someone considered mad; this is the Oxford English Dictionary's earliest cited evidence, not a demonstrated date of coinage. Why bend acquired the figurative sense is uncertain. Explanations involving a particular asylum driveway, Yarra Bend in Australia, the Hudson River, the Strait of Hormuz, toilet-cleaner advertising, or shell shock lack a documented link and should not be presented as the origin.

Research Sources

  1. round the bend Collins English Dictionary
  2. Gallimaufry of Nuts: A Cognitive-Semantic Account of Idiomatic Expressions for Mental Illness Tampere University research repository

Variants

  • Around the bend
  • Go round the bend
  • Drive someone round the bend

Usage Examples

  • The alarm's intermittent beep is driving everyone round the bend.
  • By the fifth contradictory form, I felt ready to go round the bend.
  • The detective suspects that the apparently respectable witness is round the bend.

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