break loose

The last time the Incorrigibles had attended a grown-up dinner party had been at Christmas, and on that occasion, well . . . to put it delicately, all squirrel had broken loose.

When all hell breaks loose during her quasi-scientific seance, she recognizes that the problem is beyond her capacities and that the house spells their doom.

The broken nuclei hold too many neutrons for the new atoms—that’s why neutrons break loose.

“The fear level was so high that when we had these morning meetings, you presented what you did not to upset him. And if you were critical of the organization, all hell would break loose.”

“Soon the storm will break loose,” he said to Oleg Troyanovsky, one of his top foreign policy aides, when they were back in the premier’s office in Moscow.