hair-on-fire
English
Pronunciation
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Adjective
- (idiomatic) Impassioned; eager; wild; crazy; rage-filled; frantic.
- 2003 September 9, Ben Ratliff, “Music Review: Fluttering Rat-a-tats to Celebrate a Birthday”, in New York Times, retrieved 22 Sept 2017:
- Almost no singer in rock enunciates better, and he used that skill to make noise: teeth-and-tongue clucking, gut-punch bellows, hair-on-fire shrieking.
- 2012 August 14, Tom McCarthy, “U.S. Politics: Paul Ryan heads west as convention slate unveiled”, in Guardian, UK, retrieved 22 Sept 2017:
- [T]he most common reactions to Ryan ranged from gnawing apprehension to hair-on-fire anger.
- 2016 December 16, Phil Plait, “Trump Adviser Turns the Anti-Science Up to 11”, in Slate, retrieved 22 Sept 2017:
- I’ve made something of a career in debunking nonsense when it comes to science, from people who think the Moon landings were faked to hair-on-fire UFOlogists who think every lens flare and dust mote in a photo is the precursor to an alien invasion.
- 2025 April 2, Cameron Joseph, “Democrats’ big election night gives them first hope since Trump’s victory”, in The Christian Science Monitor:
- This race [between Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel, for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court] wasn’t the only contest of the night that suggested that Democrats are hair-on-fire to vote.