Word.ws English Dictionary

all over the map

all over the map prepositional phrase: widely scattered or distributed; numerous and differing greatly.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Widely scattered or distributed; numerous and differing greatly.
    • The Kip Hanrahan Band, which opened the concert, is after its own ambitious American-Latin fusion, with internationalist rhythms, introspective lyrics and musicians from all over the map.1985 October 28, Jon Pareles, “Music: Ruben Blades's Salsa”, in New York Times
    • The reactions were swift, impassioned and all over the map.2008 August 9, “A Financial Earthquake”, in Newsweek
  2. (idiomatic) In widely scattered directions; in a widely varying manner.
    • “I hit it all over the map,” Anderson joked.2008 August 13, Scott Petrak, “Browns notes: PGA contender”, in The Chronicle, Ohio: Telegram, retrieved 13 Aug 2008

Questions about all over the map

What does all over the map mean?
All over the map means widely scattered or distributed; numerous and differing greatly.
What part of speech is all over the map?
All over the map is a prepositional phrase.

Words near all over the map in the dictionary

  1. all over someone like a rash
  2. all over the ballpark
  3. all over the board
  4. all over the gaff
  5. all over the lot
  6. all over the map
  7. all over the place
  8. all over the place like a mad woman's custard
  9. all over the shop
  10. all over the show
  11. all over the world

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: all over the map (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-all over the map.ogg.

Cite this entry: “all over the map.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/all_over_the_map. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.