Word.ws English Dictionary

out of sorts

out of sorts adjective: irritable or somewhat unwell, with vague medical symptoms.

Adjective

out of sorts (comparative more out of sorts, superlative most out of sorts)

  1. (idiomatic) Irritable or somewhat unwell, with vague medical symptoms.
    • [T]he trooper fails to fasten the brooch. His hand shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. "Would any one believe this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking round. "I am so out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!"1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, “Dutiful Friendship”, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC, pages 474–475
    • "My lads," said he, "we've had a hot day and are all tired and out of sorts."1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter 13, in Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC
  2. (dated) With some letters or sorts of type deficient or exhausted in the case or font.

out of sorts meaning in Tamil and Malayalam

out of sorts in Tamil

உடல்நலக் குறைவுடன் இருத்தல், குறைபாடுடன் கூடிய எழுத்துகள்

out of sorts in Malayalam

ill, unwell, poorly
അല്പം സുഖമില്ലാത്ത, അസുഖത്തിലായ, സുഖക്കേടായ, ഖിദ്ര, അനാരോഗ്യമുള്ള, ആരോഗ്യപ്രശ്നങ്ങളുള്ള
unhappy, sad, miserable
അസന്തുഷ്ടനായ, നിരാനന്ദ, ദുഃഖ, സങ്കടമുള്ള, ദുഃഖമുള്ള, കുണ്ഠിത

Synonyms of out of sorts

Forms of out of sorts

comparativemore out of sorts
superlativemost out of sorts

Origin of out of sorts

Comes from printing terminology where "sort" means a metal type for printing a particular letter.

Questions about out of sorts

What does out of sorts mean?
Out of sorts means irritable or somewhat unwell, with vague medical symptoms.
What is out of sorts in Tamil?
Out of sorts in Tamil is உடல்நலக் குறைவுடன் இருத்தல், குறைபாடுடன் கூடிய எழுத்துகள். See Out of sorts meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is out of sorts?
Out of sorts is an adjective.

Words near out of sorts in the dictionary

  1. out of sight
  2. out of sight is out of mind
  3. out of sight, out of mind
  4. out of someone's hands
  5. out of someone's way
  6. out of sorts
  7. out of spirits
  8. out of spoons
  9. out of square
  10. out of station
  11. out of step

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: out of sorts (page history and authors); out of sorts (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); out of sorts (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 sorts.ogg.

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