Meaning
Angry, irritated or flustered, typically about something said or done ('he gets hot under the collar whenever the auditors visit'). Informal; it covers everything from mild annoyance to real anger, and occasionally visible embarrassment. Informal and mildly jocular; often used of irritation that is visible but just about contained. Regional use: American English (clothing origin).
Origin
American in origin, resting on the physical flush of anger or embarrassment felt at the neck beneath a high, often starched collar. The Word Histories research project found the earliest known example in the Chicago Tribune of 8 July 1869, in the variant 'hot in the collar', in a report from Salt Lake City; the modern wording appears by 18 June 1870 in Nevada's Elko Independent, there still punning on literal heat from drink. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, glossing the phrase as alluding to the heat of anger, dates it to about 1900, and Christine Ammer notes it spread in the late nineteenth century, when stiff stand-up collars were standard menswear, and was familiar enough by 1907 for O. Henry to play on it. The dictionary dating therefore runs somewhat later than the newspaper record, which is the better-evidenced part of the history.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- get hot under the collar
- go hot under the collar
- hot in the collar (early variant)
Usage Examples
- Try not to get hot under the collar about the deadline; the client has moved it again.
- Viewers grew hot under the collar when the host cut off the guest mid-sentence.
- He is the calmest engineer I know; nothing in a code review makes him hot under the collar.