off one's chump

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

off one's chump

1. (Britain, Australia, slang) Crazy, insane.
   • 1883, Richard Harris, The Humourous^[sic] Story of Farmer Bumpkin′s Lawsuit, Gutenberg eBook #30551,

     “Ay, sure ’ave ur; and wot the devil I be to do agin that there Snooks, as ’ll lie through a brick wall, I beant able to say. I be pooty nigh off my chump wot wi’ one thing and another.”

   • 1888, Rolf Boldrewood (Thomas Alexander Browne), A Sydney-Side Saxon, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0607291,

     ‘ […] I′m not off my chump, no more than you are, and I haven't smelt spirits since last Christmas.’

   • 1890, Catherine Martin, An Australian Girl, 2002, Margaret Ellen Allen (biographical information), Rosemary Campbell (introduction and notes; editor), University of Queensland Press, page 90,

     It put him off his chump entirely. He went completely to the bad.

   • 1891, The Australian journal: A Weekly Record of Literature, science, and Art, Volume 26, page 477,

     Such luck as he was going for was literally impossible, and he was regarded as “off his chump,” as someone put it expressively.

   • 1912, George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

     I'm going away. He's off his chump, he is.

   • 2010, Gwyneth Daniel, The Word Mountain, page 53,

     So I′m back to square one, worrying again about whether I′m off my chump even considering doing an MA in Creative Writing, MAICW.