go into a tailspin

1. Lose emotional control, collapse, panic. For example, If she fails the bar exam again, she's sure to go into a tailspin. This expression alludes to the downward movement of an airplane out of control, in which the tail describes a spiral. [Early 1900s]

Example Sentences

It all started well, with good early wins and the success of signings Andros Townsend Demarai Gray but injuries to key figures such as England striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin saw Everton's season go into a tailspin.

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An economy heavily dependent on massive government subsidies to produce primarily weapons and munitions, as well as fund military adventurism, will go into a tailspin with a heavily depreciated dollar, falling to perhaps a third of its former value.

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Democracy in the United States can go into a tailspin.

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The straight-arrow life of a single mother begins to go into a tailspin when her drifter brother returns home.

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That is because face-to-face service industries — the kind of businesses that go into a tailspin when fearful people withdraw from one another — tend to dominate economies in high-income countries more than they do in China.

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