come unstuck

present singular third person comes unstuck · participle present coming unstuck · past came unstuck

1. UKidiomaticTo get into trouble, to have an accident or mishap, to go off the rails.

   It is true that when political philosophers have tried to intervene directly in political life, they have usually come unstuck.

   2003, David Miller, Political Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction, page 9

   1 more example

   “Well, if you must know,” he said, “she's broken the engagement.” This didn't get us any farther. We had assumed as much. You don't go calling people rats if love still lingers. “But it's only an hour or so,” I said, “since I left her outside a hostelry called the ‘Fox and Goose’, and she had just been giving you a rave notice. What came unstuck? What did you do to the girl?”

   1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC

   Synonyms: come undone