off the rails

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

an idiom meaning behaving in a wildly uncontrolled, erratic, or destructive manner, derived from the catastrophic image of a train that has left its tracks and is careering unpredictably; a person who has gone off the rails has lost the structured guidance that kept them on a productive course — they may be engaging in substance abuse, reckless behaviour, irrational decision-making, or a breakdown of social norms; the phrase is often used with concern rather than condemnation, acknowledging that the person once operated within acceptable boundaries and that the departure from them may be a crisis requiring intervention rather than simple moral failure