nutty as a fruit cake
Totally off-kilter
Nutty as a fruit cake means crazy or eccentric.
Fruitcakes are dense with nuts, and *nutty* has long been slang for insane, so the comparison doubles down: He's nutty as a fruit cake, always talking to his houseplants.
The phrase is informal and usually affectionate rather than clinical—describing harmless oddity rather than genuine mental illness.
- madcapRecklessly impulsive person
- bizarreStrikingly unconventional
- absurdWildly illogical
- mad as a hatterCompletely, absurdly insane
- stark raving madUtterly, wildly insane
cuckoo · bats in the belfry · zany · outlandish · barking mad · out to lunch · off one's rocker · out of one's tree · loony · crackers · batty · whimsical · kooky · away with the fairies · unconventional · goofy · crazy like a fox · quirky
nutty as a fruit cakesane
Mentally healthy, clearheaded
of sound mind · rational · lucid · level-headed · clear-headed
nutty as a fruit cakenormal
Conforming to standard
conventional · ordinary · straight-laced · buttoned-up · predictable
nutty, nuttier, nuttiest, nuttiness, fruit, fruits, fruity, fruitful, fruition