nutso

English

Alternative forms

• nutzo

Etymology

From nuts +‎ -o.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈnʌ.t͡soʊ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈnʌt.soʊ/

Adjective

nutso (comparative more nutso, superlative most nutso)

1. (colloquial) Crazy, insane.
   • 2000, Zadie Smith, White Teeth, London: Hamish Hamilton, →ISBN:

     "You wanted a report, so here's a full report: crazy, nutso, raisins short of a fruitcake, rubber walls, screaming-mad basket-cases."

   • 2000, Robert Bacal, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Dealing With Difficult Employees:

     "It's a bit scary if you have a difficult boss, and it's out-and-out frightening if you have a completely nutso, maladjusted, irrational, or disturbed boss."

   • 2005, G. R. Kirby, Sow the Storm:

     "I was wondering if you had any crazy nutso guy stalking you, or something."

2. (colloquial) Fraught or out of control.
   • 2005, Phyllis Hollenbeck, Sacred Trust: The Ten Rules of Life, Death, and Medicine, →ISBN, page 40:

     How being taught to not cut corners, even in a nutso emergency room shift, meant I checked all regions in Mary below the waist and didn't just tell her I thought it was probably gas.

   • 2010, Alison Seay, Your Mom's a Vampire!, page 1:

     I put my hand to my chest—my heart was going nutso.

   • 2013, Tracy Moore, Oops! How to Rock the Mother of All Surprises, →ISBN, page 114:

     A nutso relationship is no joke, and no baby should be exposed to that.

   • 2013, Chuck Wendig, Unclean Spirits, →ISBN:

     In 1969, one of the wire spoolers goes nutso, breaks off its mooring, the wire lashing about like a horse's tail trying to chase away a fly.

3. (colloquial) Obsessed; overly enthusiastic.
   • 2001, Kathryn North, Proud Mari, →ISBN, page 7:

     Even the most nutso fisherman would think twice about going out on the lake today.

   • 2002, Pamela Hayes, The Lie, →ISBN:

     I'm nutso about AnnRice, R.L. Stine, Dean Koontz.

   • 2011, Laird Foster, The Lux Proofs, →ISBN, page 287:

     My dad wants to send heirloom tomato seeds there. He's nutso about tomatoes.

   • 2013, Cindi Madsen, Falling For Her Fiance (Entangled Bliss), →ISBN:

     Don't get scared when Dani goes nutso over decorations— it's normal and then they change back.

4. (colloquial) Ridiculous; unbelievable or silly.
   • 2000, Finola Moorhead, Darkness More Visible, →ISBN, page 133:

     Forget the mechanical, materlial, solid model of communication, bring in the invisible but very real web rings. Internet, hacking and so on; puerile conversations of chat pages, insane obsessions with nutso things.

   • 2008, Becky Garrison, The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail, →ISBN, page 55:

     Trust me, we both can find fringe fanatics to prove the other side is nutso. So let's stop with this stereotypical silliness.

   • 2009, Sally John, Gary Smalley, A Time to Surrender, →ISBN, page 30:

     This is a nutso project they've taken on, but it's their nutso project, not ours.

   • 2010, John O'Keefe, The Spread, →ISBN, page 253:

     She made us go through this nutso warrior ceremony.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:insane

Noun

nutso (countable and uncountable, plural nutsos)

1. (colloquial, countable) A crazy person; a crackpot or lunatic.
   • 2001, John Sandford, Easy Prey, →ISBN:

     You know, some computer nerd rapist killer nutso builds a fantasy around her, crashes a party whereshe's supposed to be, she laughs himoff, says she'd rather be fuckin' her girlfriends than a pimply little freak--

   • 2012, A. J. Swoboda, Messy: God Likes It That Way, →ISBN, page 143:

     Sadly, at the end of his life, Luther became somewhat of a nutso.

   • 2014, David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks, →ISBN, page 417:

     Why give even one minute to this head-meddling nutso?

2. (colloquial, uncountable) Craziness; insanity.
   • 2012, Harlan Ellison, An Edge in My Voice, →ISBN:

     I wrote a letter to the Guild Newsletter apologizing for having disrupted the show, pleading temporary nutso.

   • 2014, S.P. Durnin, Keep Your Crowbar Handy, →ISBN:

     I knew she was a crazy bitch, but this is a whole new level of nutso.

Adverb

nutso (comparative more nutso, superlative most nutso)

1. (colloquial) Madly; extremely or obsessively.
   • 2012, Susan Donovan, He Loves Lucy, →ISBN:

     I'm completely, utterly, nutso in love with that man!

2. (colloquial) In a crazy manner.
   • 2006, Michael Amore, Loosely Based On Last Thursday, →ISBN, page 102:

     I'm working at the ink-jet machine running a job...then I hear a weird noise I but I can't really tell what it is over the sound of the machine right.. .then I think I hear a whimper...all of a sudden my step mom bursts out from her office all nutso saying..."where is your father, where is your father"

   • 2014, Stephen Baxter, Terry Pratchett, The Long Mars, →ISBN:

     In there was Captain Ed Cutler, whom every man and woman in Maggie's old command had once seen run nutso in Valhalla.

Anagrams

• Notus, Tuson, noust, nouts, snout, tonus