haired up

comparative more haired up · superlative most haired up

1. UScolloquialdatedExcessively emotional, excited, aroused or angry.

   If I hadn’t heard all this talk of ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggety beasties, I wouldn’t have gotten so haired-up about things going boomp in the night.

   1972, Elisabeth Ogilvie, chapter 12, in Weep and Know Why, page 91

   4 more examples

   “Give over fussin’, an’ take things as they come. That’s the only way to get along smooth-like in this world. You can keep yourself all haired up over this or that without changin’ it the least little bit.”

   1910, James Otis, chapter 14, in The Wireless Station at Silver Fox Farm, page 258

   ‘Says being over there with Jason and Polly is more than his stomach can stand. Says they act as if he wasn’t there at all, they’re so haired up about each other. Kissing and a-mauling […]

   1940, Ben Ames Williams, chapter 2, in Come Spring, section 4, page 644

   “You know what happens when you get a good reporter all haired up to get a story, and he gets it, and then you say to him: ‘Oh, by the way, can’t print it’?”

   1986, George V. Higgins, chapter 6, in Impostors, page 36

   I could tell from his dismayed expression that he had come to the realization that Solomon should not have taken part in the inquest. But apparently Daggett was still all haired up that I had questioned his judgment, for it was me he reprimanded.

   2014, B. B. Oak, Thoreau on Wolf Hill, page 39

   Synonyms: worked up

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of hair up