out to lunch

Idioms  

1. Not in touch with the real world, crazy; also, inattentive. For example, If he believes that story, he's really out to lunch, or Anne hasn't heard a word you said—she's out to lunch. This expression transfers a temporary physical absence for the purpose of eating to a temporary or permanent mental absence. [Slang; mid-1900s]

---

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

out to lunch

Yesterday, we babysat our granddaughter while our daughter and her husband went out to lunch to celebrate her birthday.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 1, 2026

I remember going out to lunch with my parents and a friend and his parents, and it wasn’t raining so hard that we couldn’t have lunch.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026

"He picked on a few boys within that group, befriend us, invited us back out to lunch at his family home and slowly over the years became a sort of father figure to me."

From BBC ● Nov. 12, 2024

Similarly, "Pretty Vacant" conveys the emptiness of a conformist, consumer-driven society that is perpetually out to lunch.

From Salon ● Jan. 30, 2024

After practice, they’ll all go to the beach or out to lunch at one of those fancy places where you can’t go barefoot like you can at my favorite place, Saucepan Lynn’s.

From "Shouting at the Rain" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

Related Words

• dull
• dumb
• foolish
• futile
• ill-advised
• irrelevant
• laughable
• ludicrous
• naive
• senseless
• shortsighted
• simple
• trivial