unhinged

adjective

un·​hinged ˌən-ˈhinjd 

: highly disturbed, unstable, or distraught

attacked by an unhinged extremist

Somewhere along the way, her pursuit of a hot guy turned into unhinged obsession.

—Cosmopolitan

"Is this a new brand of humour? Or is your brain really unhinged?" inquired Tommy.

—Agatha Christie

see also unhinge

Synonyms

• balmy
• barmy [chiefly British]
• bats
• batty
• bedlam
• bonkers
• brainsick
• bughouse [slang]
• certifiable
• crackbrained
• cracked
• crackers
• crackpot
• cranky [dialect]
• crazed
• crazy
• cuckoo
• daffy
• daft
• demented
• deranged
• fruity [slang]
• gaga
• haywire
• insane
• kooky
• kookie
• loco [slang]
• loony
• looney
• loony tunes
• looney tunes
• lunatic
• mad
• maniacal
• maniac
• mental
• meshuga
• meshugge
• meshugah
• meshuggah
• moonstruck
• non compos mentis
• nuts
• nutty
• psycho
• psychotic
• scatty [chiefly British]
• screwy
• unbalanced
• unsound
• wacko
• whacko
• wacky
• whacky
• wud [chiefly Scottish]

Examples of unhinged in a Sentence

destined to become one of the nation's most notorious serial killers, he apparently became unhinged as a result of being abandoned as a young teen

Recent Examples on the Web

The funniest moments involved physical humor: Glen Powell shooting his tongue out like a lizard; Sydney Sweeney contorting herself like Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment while stealing his airplane cookie; a beefcake surfer swimming with the zeal of an unhinged dolphin. —Erin Carlson, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Apr. 2024

There were also naval bombardments, political intrigue aplenty — and a pair of diabolical emperors who seem even crazier than Joaquin Phoenix’s unhinged monarch from the first film. —Brent Lang, Variety, 11 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1652, in the meaning defined above