dazed or stupefied because of the influence of narcotic drugs.
The spaced-out main characters are the primary feature of a stoner comedy.
dreamily or eerily out of touch with reality or seemingly so; spacey.
He was rushed to the hospital with signs of a concussion, including spaced-out and confused behavior.
An Americanism dating back to 1965–70; on the pattern of phrasal verbs with out marking completed action, such as tired out; space apparently by association with “outer space” as, metaphorically, a place outside normal consciousness
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The shiny-faced, spaced-out humans of 2024 have ceded their place to an expanded host of critters, letting Coke dodge the “uncanny valley” where nearly real simulations of people wind up unsettling viewers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 3, 2025
And you sense, from Thiên’s spaced-out expression and general disinterest in the discourse, that he’s grown tired of that cacophony, which has effectively numbed him to reality.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 25, 2024
The tour is in support of the band's seventh album, The Car, which builds on the lounge-y, spaced-out orchestral vibes of their previous record, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino.
From BBC • May 29, 2023
It’s only two minutes long, but “Amber,” from the second half of the project, runs like a spaced-out symphony.
From New York Times • May 27, 2022
They did not move in columns across the exposed places, but in open, spaced-out lines, oddly suggestive of the rushes of modern infantry advancing under fire.
From The Country of the Blind, and Other Stories by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
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.
