To Lose Your Marbles Expression

Informal marbles as a term for a person s mental faculties probably originated as early 20th century american slang.

To lose your marbles expression. The underlying reference is apparently to the children s game played with multicoloured glass balls. In the 1954 film the caine mutiny humphrey bogart linked insanity with marbles when he showed his character the demented lt. Bogart s performance was so affecting that many have supposed the film to be the source of the phrase. Become irrational or senile.

To lose one s marbles is to lose one s mind. 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. The association may have been boosted by the alliteration in the words mind and marbles. To start to forget things and be confused meaning pronunciation translations and examples.

To become of unsound mind. Lose your marbles definition. At one time to lose one s marbles meant to become angry. Another word for lose your marbles.

Go mad go crazy take leave of your senses lose your reason go off your trolley collins english thesaurus. To lose one s marbles means to go insane to take leave on one s wits to lose one s mind. 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.

To lose one s marbles may be a manifestation of the colorful language of that game playing on the idea that losing your marbles by having them knocked out of the ring means losing the game. My poor grandmother started losing her marbles after she had a stroke. Lose one s marbles to be or become mentally deficient incompetent or deranged. Queeg restlessly jiggling a set of metal balls when under stress in court.

It is as it happens pretty much contemporary with the play. The idiom to lose one s marbles has a rather convoluted origin.