Meaning
A fit of rage that clouds judgement and self-control: someone 'lets the red mist descend' or does something 'in a red mist' when anger takes over and they act rashly or violently, especially in sport. Now largely a British idiom, common in football reporting and chat; the typical American counterpart is 'seeing red'. Informal and journalistic, strongly tied to sport and temper; often used to explain rather than excuse sudden violence. Regional use: General English; strongest in British English.
Origin
The image is of a supposed rush of blood to the head in anger: the OED, quoted by The Phrase Finder, glosses the literal sense and defines the figurative one as extreme rage clouding judgement. Documented imagery is old - Thackeray's The Virginians (1857) has 'a red mist swam before my eyes', and Kipling's Kim (1901) speaks of 'the Red Mist of anger' - but the fixed anger phrase is 20th century, and its modern currency does look driven by British sport: the Phrase Finder thread cites Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch (1992) on a player's 'frequent red mists' and a 2002 Mirror report in which a manager says 'We told Santos not to let the red mist come down'. Whether the visual effect is physiologically real is doubtful; the phrase trades on the imagined blood-red veil.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a red mist descended
- red-mist moment
- the red mist comes down
- the red mist descends
Usage Examples
- The captain let the red mist descend and was sent off for shoving the referee.
- He admitted in court that a red mist had come down when he saw the smashed window.
- The tackle looked like a red-mist moment rather than a calculated attempt to injure.