round the bend
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to become or go completely crazy
Literally: to turn around a curve
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Maybe it was, too, because anyone would want to be a little round the bend to marry him …
‘ If I ever hear Wichita Lineman again,’ said Mrs Lomax, ‘ I'll go right round the bend!’
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. Figurative class: Euphemism (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31). 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 “round the bend” mean?
to become or go completely crazy Literally: to turn around a curve
Is “round the bend” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.