Englishfly off the handle
Meaning: To suddenly become very angry.
Example: “He flies off the handle whenever someone touches his guitar.”
Equivalents in other languages
French: Sortir de ses gonds Literally: To come off its hinges
Spanish: perder los estribos Literally: To lose the stirrups
Portuguese: virar bicho Literally: To turn animal- French: Prendre la mouche Literally: To take the fly
Origin: A genuine hazard of frontier life before it was ever a figure of speech: a poorly fitted axe head, or one whose wooden handle had dried and shrunk, could come loose entirely on a hard swing and go flying free. First recorded in print in Thomas Chandler Haliburton's The Attaché; or, Sam Slick in England (1843/44), with the figurative sense already circulating in American English by the 1830s. The metaphor works because both the axe head and the angry person share the same trajectory — suddenly detached from whatever was holding them steady, moving with far more force than control.
More English idioms
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- lucky dog A lucky person.
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