gall

gall and wormwood

Strong feelings of bitterness and resentment. ("Gall" is bile and "wormwood" is a bitter plant.) Ever since I lost the election for school president, I only feel gall and wormwood when I think of my unworthy opponent.

See also: and, gall, wormwood

dip (one's) pen in gall

To write something that conveys one's animosity, anger, or malice. The critic must have dipped his pen in gall before writing that very negative review.

See also: dip, gall, pen

wormwood and gall

Bitterness, resentment, disappointment, or humiliation; a figurative source of such feelings. Let me tell you, the life of a book publisher is full of wormwood and gall these days. My aunt relished cruel, embittered opinions on people and the world, seeming to prefer feasting on wormwood and gall than the many joys life brings.

See also: and, gall, wormwood

have the gall to do something

Fig. to have sufficient arrogance to do something. I bet you don't have the gall to argue with the mayor. Only Jane has the gall to ask the boss for a second raise this month.

See also: gall, have

dip your pen in gall

write unpleasantly or spitefully.

Gall is another word for bile, the bitter secretion of the liver; it is used in many places in the Bible as a metaphor for bitterness or affliction. See also wormwood and gall (at wormwood).

See also: dip, gall, pen

wormwood and gall

a source of bitter mortification and grief. literary

Gall is bile, a substance secreted by the liver and proverbial for its bitterness, while wormwood is an aromatic plant with a bitter taste. The expression originated in reference to various passages in the Bible, for example Lamentations 3:19: ‘Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall’.

See also: and, gall, wormwood

unmitigated gall

Absolute impudence, out-and-out effrontery. The use of gall, which strictly speaking means the liver’s secretion, or bile, and its extension to bitterness of any kind, dates from about a.d. 1000. In late nineteenth-century America, however, it began to be used in the sense of “nerve” or “brazenness.” Its frequent pairing with unmitigated, meaning “unmodified” or “intense,” occurred in the twentieth century.

See also: gall