To Lose Your Marbles Expression

In the 1954 film the caine mutiny humphrey bogart linked insanity with marbles when he showed his character the demented lt.

To lose your marbles expression.

To start to forget things and be confused meaning pronunciation translations and examples. To lose one s marbles is equally american and the same comment applies. Go mad go crazy take leave of your senses lose your reason go off your trolley collins english thesaurus. I ve been so sleep deprived lately that it feels like i ve lost my marbles.

To lose one s marbles is to lose one s mind. Another word for lose your marbles. At one time marbles was a slang term for furniture a misrepresentation of the french word for furniture meubles. The term lose one s marbles has undergone an evolution in meaning.

Informal marbles as a term for a person s mental faculties probably originated as early 20th century american slang. At one time to lose one s marbles meant to become angry. To become of unsound mind. Queeg restlessly jiggling a set of metal balls when under stress in court.

The underlying reference is apparently to the children s game played with multicoloured glass balls. Which clangs discordantly on my british ear since lost them good is an americanism not natively known this side of the big water and therefore an expression that the scottish barrie could not have used. My poor grandmother started losing her marbles after she had a stroke. The association may have been boosted by the alliteration in the words mind and marbles.

Lose your marbles definition. To lose one s marbles means to go insane to take leave on one s wits to lose one s mind. Lose your marbles go insane. Bogart s performance was so affecting that many have supposed the film to be the source of the phrase.

Lose one s marbles to be or become mentally deficient incompetent or deranged. It is as it happens pretty much contemporary with the play.