Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a mad person.

1927		Nichols & Tully Twenty Below Act II: Go to sleep, you nut-house.
2009		T. Black Gutted 2: ‘Right, y’bastards!,’ I wailed, like a nuthouse on meds night.

2. (orig. US, also nut hospital) a psychiatric institution.

1912		Day Book (Chicago) 27 July 30/1: If [the] Egyptian Queen was alive now she would be in [a] nut house.
1918		W.J. Schira diary 13 Dec. 🌐 My Ward is like a nut house. Always a bunch of men sneaking around and coming in to spoon with the nurses.
1921		Dos Passos Three Soldiers 88: ‘Say, Dook, your outfit was working with ours at Chamfort that time, wasn’t it?’ ‘You mean when we evacuated the nut hospital?’.
1929		(con. 1917–18) C. MacArthur War Bugs 161: People have been put in the Nut House for less.
1930		N. Lindsay Redheap (1965) 53: ‘My belief is that it’s time that they took old Bill to the nut-house,’ said Arnold.
1936		J. James ‘Sweet Patuni’ in Oliver Screening the Blues (1968) 224: Nut-house is for crazy folks, folks got sense don’t go there.
1946		Sun (Sydney) 20 Oct. 15/2: Instead of having de Groot charged with a crime and making a big man of him, he bundles him into the nut house at Darlo.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 27: The nuthouse is the best place for you.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 44: I’d send you to a fughing nut-’ouse.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 58: ‘[I]t’s a nut-house?’ ‘No [...] It’s an establishment that uses highly modern methods for mental recuperation with the accent on group therapy’.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Mama Black Widow 216: I dare you to put me in the nut house.
1978		R. Price Ladies’ Man (1985) 131: A silent Japanese film about a nuthouse.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 23: The trustee at the nut house gave me a tip.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 269: He never fucked me properly for ages, Laura told Spud, as if that was justification for getting him banged up in the nuthouse.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 328: In prison there were rules and regulations about such matters; in the nuthouse it was according to the whim of the psychiatrist.
2000		Sun 26 June 48: Put Tyson in the nuthouse.
2004		R.G. Barrett Rosa Marie’s Baby (2013) [ebook] ‘Royal Park [...] where the huthouse is’.
2008		D.R. Pollock ‘Assailants’ in Knockemstiff 127: ‘Hey, Geri, you’re the one that was beggin’ to get out of that damn nuthouse’.
2010		K. Richards Life 26: Mick Jagger had a summer job at the Bexley nuthouse.
2011		D.R. Pollock Devil All the Time 152: [T]hree broad-chested men in white coats [...] hauled the Zit-Eater away in a straitjacket to a nuthouse.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1905		Minneapolis Jrnl (MN) 8 Oct. 50/2: [cartoon caption] De guy must be nut house puttin rats in er band box!
1909		Salt lake Herald Republican (UT) 17 Oct. 33/1: [cartoon caption] Who, me, climb up there? [...] You must be nut-house.
1943		I. Wolfert Tucker’s People (1944) 320: ‘You can frame it on a nuthouse wall,’ she said and laughed.
1953		‘William Lee’ Junkie (1966) 10: The nut-house doctors had never heard of Van Gogh. They put me down for schizophrenia.
1963		in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 107: I’m no nut house hack.
1969		J. Crumley One to Count Cadence (1987) 21: I’ve handled you nut-house cases before.
1981		E. Bunker Little Boy Blue (1995) 118: Oh, you! The nuthouse kid.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 134: His men bracing armed robbers, nuthouse parolees.
2013		G. Crowe ‘Of Being Darker Than Light’ in ThugLit Feb. [ebook] ‘You’re nuthouse crazy’.

4. (US) a chaotic place or situation, a fig. madhouse.

1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 181: The Chicago loop was like a nuthouse on fire.
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 362: Christ, it’s a lunatic asylum, it really is. It’s a nuthouse.
1956		J. Osborne Look Back in Anger Act II: We’ll keep the old nut-house going somehow.
1967		M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 224: Time for me to make it out of this nut house.
1995		Sydney Morn. Herald 15 July 9A/3: ‘It’s a nuthouse [...] Things are getting a lot rougher; there’s a lot more people with knives’.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] [T]his place [i.e prison] is a nuthouse.

5. (N.Z. prison) a cell or unit reserved for the mentally unbalanaced prisoners.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 127/1: nuthouse n. the cell or unit for mentally unbalanced or potentially suicidal inmates.