nutso

adj, noun, adv — 8 senses

nutso

adj

US /ˈnʌ.t͡soʊ/ · UK /ˈnʌt.soʊ/

Etymology From nuts + -o.

1

Colloquial Crazy, insane.

  • "You wanted a report, so here's a full report: crazy, nutso, raisins short of a fruitcake, rubber walls, screaming-mad basket-cases."2000, Zadie Smith, White Teeth, London: Hamish Hamilton, →ISBN:
  • "It's a bit scary if you have a difficult boss, and it's out-and-out frightening if you have a completely nutso, maladjusted, irrational, or disturbed boss."2000, Robert Bacal, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dealing With Difficult Employees:
1 more example
  • "I was wondering if you had any crazy nutso guy stalking you, or something."2005, G. R. Kirby, Sow the Storm:
2

Colloquial Fraught or out of control.

  • How being taught to not cut corners, even in a nutso emergency room shift, meant I checked all regions in Mary below the waist and didn't just tell her I thought it was probably gas.2005, Phyllis Hollenbeck, Sacred Trust: The Ten Rules of Life, Death, and Medicine, →ISBN, page 40:
  • I put my hand to my chest—my heart was going nutso.2010, Alison Seay, Your Mom's a Vampire!, page 1:
2 more examples
  • A nutso relationship is no joke, and no baby should be exposed to that.2013, Tracy Moore, Oops! How to Rock the Mother of All Surprises, →ISBN, page 114:
  • In 1969, one of the wire spoolers goes nutso, breaks off its mooring, the wire lashing about like a horse's tail trying to chase away a fly.2013, Chuck Wendig, Unclean Spirits, →ISBN:
3

Colloquial Obsessed; overly enthusiastic.

  • Even the most nutso fisherman would think twice about going out on the lake today.2001, Kathryn North, Proud Mari, →ISBN, page 7:
  • I'm nutso about AnnRice, R.L. Stine, Dean Koontz.2002, Pamela Hayes, The Lie, →ISBN:
2 more examples
  • My dad wants to send heirloom tomato seeds there. He's nutso about tomatoes.2011, Laird Foster, The Lux Proofs, →ISBN, page 287:
  • Don't get scared when Dani goes nutso over decorations— it's normal and then they change back.2013, Cindi Madsen, Falling For Her Fiance (Entangled Bliss), →ISBN:
4

Colloquial Ridiculous; unbelievable or silly.

  • Forget the mechanical, materlial, solid model of communication, bring in the invisible but very real web rings. Internet, hacking and so on; puerile conversations of chat pages, insane obsessions with nutso things.2000, Finola Moorhead, Darkness More Visible, →ISBN, page 133:
  • Trust me, we both can find fringe fanatics to prove the other side is nutso. So let's stop with this stereotypical silliness.2008, Becky Garrison, The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail, →ISBN, page 55:
2 more examples
  • This is a nutso project they've taken on, but it's their nutso project, not ours.2009, Sally John, Gary Smalley, A Time to Surrender, →ISBN, page 30:
  • She made us go through this nutso warrior ceremony.2010, John O'Keefe, The Spread, →ISBN, page 253:

nutso

noun

Etymology From nuts + -o.

1

Colloquial A crazy person; a crackpot or lunatic.

  • You know, some computer nerd rapist killer nutso builds a fantasy around her, crashes a party whereshe's supposed to be, she laughs himoff, says she'd rather be fuckin' her girlfriends than a pimply little freak--2001, John Sandford, Easy Prey, →ISBN:
  • Sadly, at the end of his life, Luther became somewhat of a nutso.2012, A. J. Swoboda, Messy: God Likes It That Way, →ISBN, page 143:
1 more example
  • Why give even one minute to this head-meddling nutso?2014, David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks, →ISBN, page 417:
2

Colloquial Craziness; insanity.

  • I wrote a letter to the Guild Newsletter apologizing for having disrupted the show, pleading temporary nutso.2012, Harlan Ellison, An Edge in My Voice, →ISBN:
  • I knew she was a crazy bitch, but this is a whole new level of nutso.2014, S.P. Durnin, Keep Your Crowbar Handy, →ISBN:

nutso

adv

Etymology From nuts + -o.

1

Colloquial Madly; extremely or obsessively.

  • I'm completely, utterly, nutso in love with that man!2012, Susan Donovan, He Loves Lucy, →ISBN:
2

Colloquial In a crazy manner.

  • I'm working at the ink-jet machine running a job...then I hear a weird noise I but I can't really tell what it is over the sound of the machine right.. .then I think I hear a whimper...all of a sudden my step mom bursts out from her office all nutso saying..."where is your father, where is your father"2006, Michael Amore, Loosely Based On Last Thursday, →ISBN, page 102:
  • In there was Captain Ed Cutler, whom every man and woman in Maggie's old command had once seen run nutso in Valhalla.2014, Stephen Baxter, Terry Pratchett, The Long Mars, →ISBN:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.