Word.ws English Dictionary

out of kilter

Syllables: out of kil·terUK/ˌaʊt əv ˈkɪltə/US/ˌaʊt əv ˈkɪltɚ/

out of kilter prepositional phrase: askew, disturbed; not adjusted or working properly; out of order.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) Askew, disturbed; not adjusted or working properly; out of order.
    • I stayed up late to watch a movie, and my entire sleeping schedule has been out of kilter ever since.
    • Aye, ſquire, that thing [a statue of Hercules] has been fixt in this ſpot I warrant you theſe hundred years; it was ſadly out of kilter when I came to the eſtate, but I got my neighbour the conſtable, who is a carpenter, to make him that right arm, and put the ſtaff into it, for I could not bear to...1762, [Susan Smythies], “Presents the Reader with a Prospect of the Sullens”, in The Stage-coach: Containing the Character of Mr. Manly, and the History of His Fellow Travellers, Dublin: Printed by...

out of kilter meaning in Malayalam

out of kilter in Malayalam

off balance, awry, unbala-nced
ശരിയായി പ്രവർത്തിക്കാത്ത, കേടായ, തകരാറിലായ, പ്രവർത്തനക്ഷമ മല്ലാത്ത, താളം തെറ്റിയ, വക്രമായ

Examples of out of kilter in a sentence

  • Jack says they are lop-sided and out of kilter altogether.1890, Charles Erskine, chapter V, in Twenty Years before the Mast: […], Boston, Mass.: Published by the author, →OCLC, page 72:
  • Snowstorms often knock the Government's Salt Lake radio range out of kilter.1941 March 10, “An Airliner Cracks Up in Pine Woods near Atlanta and Seven People Die”, in Henry R[obinson] Luce, editor, Life, volume 10...

Forms of out of kilter

alternative formout of kelter

Origin of out of kilter

From out of + kilter, kelter (“good condition, form, or order; fettle”). The latter word is of uncertain origin, but appears widely in a British dialect and also in the United States.

Questions about out of kilter

What does out of kilter mean?
Out of kilter means askew, disturbed; not adjusted or working properly; out of order.
What is out of kilter in Malayalam?
Out of kilter in Malayalam is ശരിയായി പ്രവർത്തിക്കാത്ത, കേടായ, തകരാറിലായ. See Out of kilter meaning in Malayalam.
How do you use out of kilter in a sentence?
Jack says they are lop-sided and out of kilter altogether.
What part of speech is out of kilter?
Out of kilter is a prepositional phrase.
How do you pronounce out of kilter?
Out of kilter is pronounced /ˌaʊt əv ˈkɪltə/ (UK).

Words near out of kilter in the dictionary

  1. out of it
  2. out of joint
  3. out of keeping with
  4. out of kelter
  5. out of key
  6. out of kilter
  7. out of line
  8. out of luck
  9. out of nowhere
  10. out of office
  11. out of one's box

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: out of kilter (page history and authors); out of kilter (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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-out of kilter.ogg.

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