dazed, out of touch with reality, or easily confused; spaced-out.
The younger character was spacey and prone to making mistakes.
characterized by an ethereal or dreamlike quality, or evoking a feeling reminiscent of the altered state experienced under the influence of narcotic drugs.
He uses lots of effects that give the music an eerie, spacey feel.
Someone who's spacey acts distracted, befuddled, and maybe a bit strange. You might be a little spacey after you get your wisdom teeth removed. When people say funny things as they're coming out of anesthesia, acting silly or out of touch with reality, they're being spacey. You might also have a spacey friend who simply tends to be a little forgetful or quirky. This informal adjective, also spelled spacy, originally meant "roomy" and then "acting or feeling as if you're in outer space," probably from 1965 American slang, spaced-out.
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Unlike most modern pop albums, it's the work of just three people, with Rae and her collaborators Elvira Anderfjärd and Luka Kloser establishing a stylish, spacey and occasionally off-kilter sonic palette all of their own.
From BBC • Dec. 20, 2025
The first two Tame Impala albums, 2010’s “Innerspeaker” and 2012’s “Lonerism,” were filled with carefully assembled psychedelic rock featuring spacey guitar riffs and moments of pleasing disorientation.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 21, 2025
Its spacey bass line, Afro background vocals and subtle melodic effects are complemented by Pabön’s rapping.
From Los Angeles Times • May 29, 2024
And he appeared just as often in more popular fare, playing a spacey tank commander in “Kelly’s Heroes,” a demented arsonist in “Backdraft” and an authoritarian president in the “Hunger Games” films.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 27, 2024
I had gotten used to Sunny quoting some spacey book that nobody had ever read.
From "Ghost" by Jason Reynolds
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
