Angry. I'm sorry I got hot under the collar just then, I have a hard time hearing criticism about my novel.The way you kids deliberately disobey me makes me hot under the collar!Arguments started breaking out during the meeting, and pretty soon everyone was hot under the collar.
Fig. very angry. The boss was really hot under the collar when you told him you lost the contract.I get hot under the collar every time I think about it.
Angry, as in She is quick to get hot under the collar, but once the problem is ironed out she forgets it entirely . This expression alludes to the heat of anger. [c. 1900]
To be upset, agitated, angry. The heat of anger has been noted since ancient times, and it often manifests itself in a flushed, warm face and neck. The precise expression here has been used since the late nineteenth century, when high collars were still in fashion for men. It was well known enough by 1907 for O. Henry to play on it: “That makes Alice warm under the lace yoke” (The Sphinx Apple).“Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words, Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter. . . .” —William Shakespeare, HenryV
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