by Kate Woodford
It will come as no surprise to you that an aspect of the human body as important and visible as hair features in a lot of English idioms. Today I’m going to look at a selection of these phrases that feature in contemporary English.
I’ll start with three idioms that are related to anger and annoyance. If someone gets in your hair, they annoy you, usually by being with you too much, or repeatedly talking to you. If you are tearing your hair out over something, you are feeling very angry and stressed because of it. In UK English, if you say to someone Keep your hair on! you are telling them (rather rudely) to calm down and stop shouting or being angry. All three idioms are informal in tone.
If we were both at home together all day, he’d probably get in my hair.
I’ve been tearing my hair out over these stupid forms.
All right, keep your hair on! Shouting isn’t going to help!
If something makes your hair stand on end, it frightens you very much, and if something shocking or unexpected happens and someone doesn’t turn a hair, they show no surprise and no emotion when you would expect them to:
Her stories of the climbs that they’d done made my hair stand on end.
He’s so rude in meetings and yet no one turns a hair.
If you let your hair down, you behave much more freely than usual in order to have fun. This is a slightly old-fashioned phrase, but still heard. Meanwhile, someone who does not have a hair out of place is very neat, with every detail perfect:
Come one, let your hair down for once!
Sophie’s always perfect – not a hair out of place.
If people who are discussing something split hairs, they argue over details that are too small to be important. This phrase is disapproving:
Let’s not split hairs – we both agree on the main points.
We use the phrase a hair’s breadth to emphasize how something very impressive or very bad almost happened. We also use it to convey how small a distance or amount is:
We escaped death by a hair’s breadth.
She won the race by a hair’s breadth.
Finally, to not harm/touch a hair of/on someone’s head is to not harm any part of them:
If he so much as harms a hair on her head, I will not be responsible for my actions!
Perhaps you know of a ‘hair’ idiom that I haven’t covered here? If so, please share in the comments.
