| 词汇 | off the wall |
| 词源 | off the wall. Many sports, including handball, squash, and racquetball, could be the source of this recent expression mean- ing “crazy, eccentric, highly unusual, outrageous”—as balls of- ten bounce erratically off walls in all of these games. On the other hand, the term may be related to the earlier expression bounce off the walls, referring to the behavior of psychotic pa- tients in mental hospitals. |
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