out of control

Idioms  

1. 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.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

out of control

He claimed that Paltrow skied out of control and slammed into him, causing four broken ribs and permanent brain damage.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026

He has run the business in Leeds for 16 years and said shoplifting has "got out of control" in the past five to 10 years.

From BBC ● Sep. 16, 2026

AI safety researchers inside and outside the big AI companies have long theorized that sufficiently powerful AI systems could start improving themselves and spiral out of control.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026

OpenAI and Anthropic's agents were secretly out of control for months before anyone noticed.

From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026

On June 14, 1923, three months after the Smiths’ house was demolished, Grammer had been killed when his Cadillac spun out of control and flipped over.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann