nuthouse

nuthouse

old-fashioned slang A derogatory and offensive term for a psychiatric hospital or insane asylum. "Nut" is a derogatory slang term meaning "a crazy person." My great aunt Lidia apparently got locked up in a nuthouse when she was a teenager because she said she could commune with ghosts. I can't go to the police about it! They'd throw me in the nuthouse if I came to them with such an unbelievable story.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

nuthouse

and nut factory and nut-foundry and nuthatch
n. an insane asylum. The teacher spent three years in the nuthouse. When did you get out of the nut factory?
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • foundry
  • nut factory
  • nut-foundry
  • nuthatch
  • nuttery
  • saltine
  • queen
  • Queens
  • nutter
  • nutcase
References in periodicals archive
TINA LEFT THE NUTHOUSE LAST October, the final member of Sheer Mag to do so.
Lena couldn't imagine what "papa mama nuthouse eighteen" meant (the young man had muttered those words rapidly and quietly), but she forgot about that right away--she suddenly wanted so badly to take a sip of twenty-thousand-Euros-a-bottle wine that her mouth watered.
Even after two years in the nuthouse, this unconventional odd couple seems incapable of functioning off the institutional leash.
If someone had told me at the start of the season that England would be choosing from Andy Carroll and Jay Bothroyd to lead our attack, I'd have directed them to the local nuthouse.
What else would it be, her room in the nuthouse? White indeed, and painted white so often and so emphatically that the paint is soft, the layers so thick on the jamb that they accept the inquiring pressure of her thumbnail.
McIntyre, an obstinate and frugal old widow, whose husbands are all either dead, locked up in the nuthouse, or drunk in some Florida motel room (309).
Given the taunting and teasing on the playground that a child will likely endure because it is known that his or her parent is a "jailbird" or "in the nuthouse," a child may also tie about a parent's absence.
A spokesman from Nuthouse Estate Agents which operates from the premises said: "We would like to say a big thank you to the people in Clayton Road who did support us."
Frayne, who once owned the Nuthouse hairdressers in Queen's Arcade, Cardiff, and two other salons across South Wales, told the court: "I told him I had never been involved in drugs before but then I foolishly accepted his offer.
Making your way through a mazelike nuthouse in your pursuit of the Joker, you'll encounter most of the villains in Batman's rogues gallery.
It's really quite an experience to lie on a bed in a nuthouse, staring at the ceiling, and reflecting on a half-century of life.
The Nuthouse Grill was approved to sell spirits/beer/wine in a restaurant lounge at 8874 Bender Plaza, Suite 109, Lynden, WA 98264.
Since mating Kriegenburg with Nagano was one of the first executive acts for which Jincoming Intendant Nicholas Bachler could take credit, the production somewhat allayed fears that this Austrian will turn the Staatsoper into even more of a production nuthouse than it was during the reign of the Englishman, Sir Peter Jonas.
You belong in a nuthouse. Sometimes you tease your wife by singing "If I had a face like Francis had, I know what I would do.
"We're at a time now where many promoters are ending up not in the poorhouse but the nuthouse, because audiences are waiting and not knowing what they might need financially.