To Lose Your Marbles

Bogart s performance was so affecting that many have supposed the film to be the source of the phrase.

To lose your marbles.

The goal of lose your marbles which is quite aptly named is to get rid of all your marbles as fast as you can. Lose your marbles definition. Once you do so they disappear sometimes dumping marbles on your opponent but more and more marbles keep dropping down from the top. The underlying reference is apparently to the children s game played with multicoloured glass balls.

To become of unsound mind. Become irrational or senile. Lose one s marbles to be or become mentally deficient incompetent or deranged. You may move your rows of marbles up or down or move a specially designated pitch line from right to left in order to get 3 4 or 5 similarly colored marbles in an unbroken horizontal array.

My poor grandmother started losing her marbles after she had a stroke. Queeg restlessly jiggling a set of metal balls when under stress in court. Lose one s marbles to be or become mentally deficient incompetent or deranged. In the 1954 film the caine mutiny humphrey bogart linked insanity with marbles when he showed his character the demented lt.

Informal marbles as a term for a person s mental faculties probably originated as early 20th century american slang. Lose your marbles go insane. My poor grandmother started losing her marbles after she had a stroke.