Word.ws English Dictionary

go off the handle

go off the handle verb: to die.

Verb

go off the handle (third-person singular simple present goes off the handle, present participle going off the handle, simple past went off the handle, past participle gone off the handle)

  1. (colloquial) To die.
    • But the end came - the old fellow held on toughly; he never died until Lev's patience, hope and slender income were quite threadbare; so at last he went off the handle - Lev buried him and mourned the dispensation in true Kilkenny fashion.1856, Jonathan F. Kelley, “Nursing a Legacy”, in The Humors of Falconbridge, Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson, page 374
    • “Pansay went off the handle,” says Heatherlegh, “after the stimulus of long leave at Home.”1888, Rudyard Kipling, “The Phantom Rickshaw”, in The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Tales, Allahabad: A.H. Wheeler and Co., page 8

Forms of go off the handle

third-person singular presentgoes off the handle
present participlegoing off the handle
pastwent off the handle
past participlegone off the handle

Questions about go off the handle

What does go off the handle mean?
Go off the handle means to die.
What part of speech is go off the handle?
Go off the handle is a verb.
What is the past tense of go off the handle?
The past tense of go off the handle is went off the handle.

Words near go off the handle in the dictionary

  1. go off halfcocked
  2. go off into the weeds
  3. go off on a tangent
  4. go off on one
  5. go off the boil
  6. go off the handle
  7. go off the res
  8. go off the reservation
  9. go off the rez
  10. go on
  11. go on by

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go off the handle (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.

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