out of whack
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
not working properly or in harmony
Literally: out of balance or alignment
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
For some reason, asset prices get way out of whack and rise to unsustainable levels.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
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 “out of whack” mean?
not working properly or in harmony Literally: out of balance or alignment
Is “out of whack” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.