English · Idiom Candidate

fly off the handle

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Get angry.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

trở nên giận dữ

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

I only asked her what she paid for that dull - looking dress and she flew off the handle at me.

Some of these escapades upset Mrs Cohen, who was given to ‘ flying off the handle,’ in Rosengarten's phrase.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Euphemism (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).

Common questions

What does “fly off the handle” mean?

Get angry.

Is “fly off the handle” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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