go off the reservation

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   To leave an Indian reservation to which one was restricted.

   • The Indian may go off the reservation, he can steal from the whites and run back to the reservation with impunity.
2. 2

   To break with one's party or group, usually temporarily.

   • This hand was ready to give the works to any physician, a member of the Medical Association in good standing, who'd go off the reservation by daring to serve a medical co-operative on a full-time salary.
   • I'll never forget 1948 when these so called "liberals" (synthetics I call them) went off the reservation and gave New York to Dewey.
3. 3

   To engage in disruptive activity outside normal bounds.

4. ›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer

   1. 4

      To act in an independent, uncontrolled, or unauthorized manner.

      • The technician mentally recalibrated. "Yes ma'am. An Alpha-9-associated device just went offline unexpectedly." She raised an eyebrow. "Thompson and Adams gone off the res again?"

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