doolally, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

doolally adj.

also doolaley, do-lally

[the Deolalie milit. sanatorium in Bombay, to which mentally ill troops were sent. However, according to the veteran Frank Richards, writing in his memoir Old Soldier Sahib (1936), the illness came not before one arrived at Deolalie but during one’s stay there. Time-expired troops were sent to the sanatorium to await the next troop-ship home. It was during the long hot days of tedium that men, formerly first-class soldiers, might gradually go to pieces]

(orig. milit.)

1. mad, eccentric; thus used as n. a madman (see cite 1914) or madness (see cite 2019); occas as n. see cite 1994.

1902		Sheffield Eve. Teleg. 27 Oct. 10/1: Prisoner said when he got a drop of beer he became ‘doolally’.
1911		Manchester Courier 1 Feb. 6/7: The expression ‘to be a bit Dhoolallie’ is ‘to have got the Dhoolallie tap’ is one which has spread from military slang.
1914		Burnley News 14 Nov. 2/4: He was what the soldiers called a ‘doolally’: immediately he got drunk he got mad.
1930		(con. 1914–18) Brophy & Partridge Songs and Sl. of the British Soldier.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 28: Without him I should be puggled and doolally.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 152: It’s Jock White, de lifer. He’s a bit doolaley.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 22: Every new moon—d’you foller me?—she gets convulsions. She goes doolally.
1963		C. Wood ‘Prisoner and Escort’ Cockade (1965) I iii: It’s the strain see – and it gets the doolally lads first.
1963		K. Waterhouse Jubb (1966) 208: Come on, doolallies! Get hold of him!
1980		A. Payne ‘All Mod Cons’ Minder [TV script] 21: Is it me, or is he a bit doolally?
1981		P. Reading ‘The Euphemisms’ in Tom O’Bedlam’s Beauties 42: Nutty, Screwy, [...] Do-Lally, Dopey, Silly.
1994		B. MacLaverty Walking the Dog 53: ‘If the milk round paid more I wouldn’t have to be standing here like some kind of a fuckin doo-lally talking to you’ .
1997		Fraser & Meadows TwentyFourSeven [film script] (1998) 23: People may think I’m a bit doolally but they know I’m harmless.
2001		Indep. Rev. 10 Dec. 7: After the 1983 incident, he went a bit ‘doolally’ and even thought of suicide.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 259: Kind ay fed up wi this dolally wee cunt, if the truth be telt.
2019		Twitter 12 June 🌐 I’m actually scared at the level of doolally British politicians are currently exhibiting. They seem to be living in some kind of parallel reality.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] ‘[I]f I’d done half what he got up to I’d pretend to go doolally too, in case the busies turned up with a charge sheet’.
2021		P Howard Braywatch 267: ‘I told you – they’re focking doolally, the pair of them’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 659: What it was that had driven him all doollaly was burying Himmler.

2. very drunk.

1984

Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 331/2: army: from ca. 1930; by ca. 1950 ob.

3. malfunctioning, out of order.

1959

W. Hall Long and the Short and the Tall Act I: A doolally battery and ten-thumbed Whitaker i/c!