out of control

Idioms

Also, out of hand. No longer under management, direction, or regulation; unmanageable or unruly. For example, Housing costs are out of control, or The children were getting out of hand again. The first term uses control in the sense of “restraint,” a usage dating from the late 1500s; the variant uses hand in the sense of “power” or “authority,” and dates from the late 1800s.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

If it gets out of control, this leads to a process called a thermal runaway.

From Los Angeles Times • May 27, 2026

Growth valuations aren’t even that out of control, so strong earnings could certainly push the stocks higher.

From Barron's • May 11, 2026

Because if we’re not schooling people, it’s going to become more rampant than it already is, and it is out of control.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 11, 2026

Read my past op-ed: The price Americans pay for medicine has gotten horribly out of control.

From MarketWatch • May 4, 2026

What they needed to do, both leaders agreed, was find a way to compete without letting events slip out of control.

From "Fallout: Spies, Superbombs, and the Ultimate Cold War Showdown" by Steve Sheinkin

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023