Word.ws English Dictionary

doolally

Syllables: doo·lal·ly/duːˈlæli/US/duˈlæli/

doolally adjective: eccentric; insane, mad.

Adjective

doolally (comparative more doolally, superlative most doolally)

  1. (Ireland, UK, slang) Eccentric; insane, mad.
    • "Will you write me an Essay on Corsets?" / "On what?" I asked incredulously—knowing that he had been a distinguished soldier, and suspecting that he had suddenly developed what the soldiers describe as "a touch of the doolally."[1920, Richard King [pseudonym; Richard King Huskinson], “How I Came to Make ‘History’!”, in Over the Fireside with Silent Friends, London: John Lane, The Bodley Head; New York, N.Y.: John Lane...
    • "When you've got any God's amount of brains," said Frobisher, "you can pretend to be doolally;[…]"1932, James Lansdale Hodson, chapter II, in North Wind, London: Faber and Faber […], →OCLC, page 26
  2. (Ireland, UK, broadly, slang) Carried away by enjoyment, excitement, etc.
    • You are there to entertain. Education is something we like doing. That's not actually the biggest thing on the night, when people are queuing to get in and paying their money. They want to go doolally to their favourite records.1999 May 13, Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton, quoting Pete Tong, “Pete Tong: Essential Selector: Interviewed by Bill and Frank in London, May 13, 1999”, in The Record Players: The Story of Dance Music...
    • 'I've never had a pet before,' Darkus gazed happily at Baxter [a beetle]. 'Thank you.' / 'That's all right, lad.' Uncle Max threw his hands up in defeat. 'I can hardly say no, when I know Barty would say yes.' / Darkus looked up, surprised. 'He would?' / 'Of course! A handsome hexapod like this?...2016, M. G. Leonard [pseudonym; Maya Gabrielle], “The Entomology Vaults”, in Beetle Boy, Frome, Somerset: Chicken House, →ISBN, page 49

Examples of doolally in a sentence

  • It's the strain see – and it gets the doolally lads first.1965, New English Dramatists (Penguin Plays), number 8, Harmondsworth, Middlesex [London]: Penguin Books, →OCLC, page 40:
  • They were all doolally of course, except Philomela.1973, Maureen Duffy, chapter II, in I Want to Go to Moscow: A Lay, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN, page 61:
  • [H]e took three sleeping-pills in the night, so he says, and he's all doped and doolally now.1993, Blake Morrison, “Foetal”, in And When Did You Last See Your Father?, London: Granta Books in association with Penguin Books...
  • Promise you'll put me in a home when I get really doolally." / "If you're really doolally you won't know if I have or not." / "So promise."2000, Patrick Gale, “Blue House”, in Rough Music, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published May 2001, →ISBN, page 54:

Synonyms of doolally

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of doolally

comparativemore doolally
superlativemost doolally

Origin of doolally

From doolally tap (“camp fever; (by extension) eccentricity; madness”), with doolally interpreted as an adjective. Doolally is derived from the Deolali transit camp, a former British army camp about 100 miles (160 kilometres) northeast of Bombay, India, used as a transit station for soldiers awaiting transport back to Britain; while tap (“Indian malarial fever”) is from Persian or Urdu تب (tab, “malarial fever”), ultimately from Sanskrit ताप (tāpa, “fever; heat; pain, torment”).

Phrases with doolally

Words that rhyme with doolally

13 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about doolally

What does doolally mean?
Doolally means eccentric; insane, mad.
How do you use doolally in a sentence?
It's the strain see – and it gets the doolally lads first.
What part of speech is doolally?
Doolally is an adjective.
How do you pronounce doolally?
Doolally is pronounced /duːˈlæli/ (UK).

Words near doolally in the dictionary

  1. dooky
  2. dooky braid
  3. dooky braids
  4. dool tree
  5. dool trees
  6. doolally
  7. doolally tap
  8. Doolan
  9. Doolans
  10. doole
  11. doolee

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: doolally (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-doolally.wav.

Cite this entry: “doolally.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doolally. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.