Off-balance means unsteady, on the point of toppling. One foot off the kerb, arms out, already falling.
You are knocked off-balance, thrown off-balance, caught off-balance. Boxing and dance use the physical sense constantly. The figurative use is just as common and rather more useful: a question can catch you off-balance, meaning it arrived before you had an answer ready. It takes a hyphen in front of a noun and often loses it after a verb, and either way it is the opposite of steady.
1adjectiveoff-balanceUnsteady and in danger of falling.
“The gust caught him off-balance.”
2adjectiveunpreparedCaught unprepared.
“Her question left him completely off-balance.”
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 3 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word