off the scale

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

Extremely good or bad, beyond normal measurement

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Rất tốt hoặc rất xấu, vượt quá thước đo bình thường

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: beyond a gauge's limits
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

The new restaurant's popularity is off the scale

AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “off the scale” mean?

Extremely good or bad, beyond normal measurement Literally: beyond a gauge's limits

Is “off the scale” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.