curse like a pagan

present singular third person curses like a pagan · participle present cursing like a pagan · participle past cursed like a pagan · past cursed like a pagan

1. simileSynonym of swear like a trooper.

   When his father saw him he fumed terribly, cursing like a pagan, and asking whether his son were a roysterer fit for the gallows as well as a fool fit for a cassock.

   1902, Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome

   2 more examples

   […]from the moment the guide announced he had lost his way, my factotum took leave at once of his courage and his senses and began to weep like a child and curse like a pagan.

   1857, Robert Walter Stewart, The tent and the khan: A journey to Sinai and Palestine, page 482

   The Febrers returned to their house covered with renown even in defeat; one bearing the golden testimonial of the Caesar’s friendship; the other, the knight commander, lying on a litter, cursing like a pagan because the blockading of Algiers had been discontinued.

   1920, Frances Douglas, The Dead Command, translation of Los Muertos Mandan by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, page 114

   Synonyms: swear like a trooper