drive someone crazy

Idioms and Phrases

Also, drive someone mad or bananas or bonkers or nuts or up the wall ; drive someone to drink . Greatly exasperate someone, annoy to distraction. For example, His habitual lateness drives me crazy , or Apologizing over and over drives me bananas , or These slovenly workmen drive me up the wall , or Your nagging is driving me to drink . All of these hyperbolic expressions describe a person's extreme frustration, supposedly to the point of insanity ( crazy, mad, nuts, bonkers , and bananas all mean “insane”); up the wall alludes to climbing the walls to escape and to drink to imbibing alcohol to induce oblivion.