Word.ws English Dictionary

noses out of joint

noses out of joint is the plural of nose out of joint.

Meaning of nose out of joint

Noun

nose out of joint (plural noses out of joint)

  1. (idiomatic) An emotional state where someone is in a bad mood because they have been offended by or taken exception (objected) to some action, usually involving being seen in an inferior light to another person.
    • I think he got his nose out of joint when they promoted his friend but not him.

Questions about noses out of joint

What is noses out of joint the plural of?
Noses out of joint is the plural of nose out of joint.

Words near noses out of joint in the dictionary

  1. noses
  2. noses about
  3. noses around
  4. noses of wax
  5. noses out
  6. noses out of joint
  7. noses over
  8. noses to grindstones
  9. noses to the grindstone
  10. noseshot
  11. noseslide

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: noses out of joint (page history and authors); nose out of joint (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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