Meanings
- AustraliaUKcolloquialCrazy, insane.
1888, Rolf Boldrewood (Thomas Alexander Browne), A Sydney-Side Saxon, Gutenberg Australia eBook #0607291, ‘ […] I′m not off my chump, no more than you are, and I haven't smelt spirits since last Christmas.’
5 more examples
“Ay, sure ’ave ur; and wot the devil I be to do agin that there Snooks, as ’ll lie through a brick wall, I beant able to say. I be pooty nigh off my chump wot wi’ one thing and another.”
1883, Richard Harris, The Humourous^([sic]) Story of Farmer Bumpkin′s Lawsuit, Gutenberg eBook #305511890, Catherine Martin, An Australian Girl, 2002, Margaret Ellen Allen (biographical information), Rosemary Campbell (introduction and notes; editor), University of Queensland Press, page 90, It put him off his chump entirely. He went completely to the bad.
Such luck as he was going for was literally impossible, and he was regarded as “off his chump,” as someone put it expressively.
1891, The Australian journal: A Weekly Record of Literature, science, and Art, volume 26, page 477What with the shock of him going in this awful rash way, and thinking myself a made man by that chance, I was nearly off my chump for a week.
1899 September – 1900 July, Joseph Conrad, chapter VI, in Lord Jim: A Tale, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published 1900, →OCLCI'm going away. He's off his chump, he is. I dont want no balmies teaching me.
1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act II, page 125
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
See chump (“the head”), and compare off one's head.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
off one's chump. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/off%20one's%20chump
“off one's chump.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/off%20one's%20chump. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “off one's chump,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/off%20one's%20chump.
Source: off one's chump on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.