Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. naut.) eccentric, crazy, insane; ext. as round the bend – and back again; round the bend – and halfway down the straight.

1929		F.C. Bowen Sea Sl. 114: Round the bend, an old naval term for anybody who is mad.
1945		in M. Page Kiss Me Goodnight, Sgt.-Major (1973) 180: [song title] Going Round The Bend.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 140: If you’re all so bloody certain the poor girl’s round the bend, why not stop badgering her?
1962		F. Norman Guntz 218: They drove each other right around the bend.
1969		A. Buzo Rooted I iii: She must be dreaming. Simmo? Her? She’s round the bend.
1977		A. Ayckbourn Ten Times Table I i: God, that’s even worse. A Marxist. That’s even worse. They’re completely round the bend.
1989		R. Dahl Rhyme Stew (1990) 52: They’re all completely round the bend.
1999		Indep. Rev. 2 Aug. 7: Doing gags all the time is all very well [...] but it drives you round the bend.
2005		B. Woodward (ref. to 1966-1972) Secret Man 229: Our editors might think we had an agenda or that our reporting was overreaching or even that we had gone around the bend.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] [H]e went right around the twist and ended up in the rat house for real.’.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 165: You’re not a [...] psycho killer, are you? My friendship’s not sending you over the bend?’.

(Aus. Und.) a sentence of twelve months.

1941

Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.

1. drunk.

1855

J. Brougham Basket of Chips 365: The Cap’n and me was round the horn last night.

2. (US Und.) detained on a minor criminal charge but suspected of a more serious crime.

1986

Chapman NDAS.

3. (US Und.) used of a suspect who is moved between police stations to keep them from legal advice.

1929

Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket! 236: ’round the horn — To take a prisoner from police station to police station to prevent his release under a writ of habeas corpus, until there has been sufficient opportunity to question him.

1. mad, eccentric, insane.

1960		D. Abse House of Cowards (1967) 40: He’s barmy, round the twist saying things like that.
1970		H.E. Bates A Little of What You Fancy (1985) 517: It was the only thing that stopped him from going utterly round the twist.
1977		(con. late 1960s) Nicholson & Smith Spend, Spend, Spend (1978) 194: You’re enough to drive any man round the fucking twist you are.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 290: An unfortunate curdling of the genes which sent the women of the family clean around the twist.
1998		P. Doyle (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 89: ‘Max is completely round the twist’.
1999		Indep. Rev. 7 Oct. 8: For years I thought I was insane, quite round the twist.
2000		M. Amis Experience 314: Don’t you remember? The last thing in your Memoirs. Called ‘A Peep Round the Twist’. [...] You went slightly nuts for a little while.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 807: He looked at me like I was round the twist. He might have been right!!

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

2001

(con. 1945–6) P. Doyle Devil’s Jump (2008) 167: The other [had] a not-quite-well, slightly-around-the-twist look about him.

(Aus.) inferior, as of wine, usu. laced with methylated spirits.

1968

S. Gore Holy Smoke 60: That’d mean top quality plonk [...] Not this round-the-world-for-a-dollar steam that you go for.

(N.Z.) drinking methylated spirits, or cheap wine.

1970		N. Beagley Up and Down Under 80: Muscat was dubbed ‘Round the world for fourpence,’ or a ‘fourpenny dart.’.
1984		N.Z. Times 10 June 10: Round the World for Ninepence, Jessie’s Dream, Fix Bayonets, devotees called methylated spirits, recommending orange juice as a dilutant. Diluted or neat, it can, and does, cause blindness [DNZE].
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 94/2: round the world for threepence / fourpence / ninepence drinking methylated spirits.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].