have kittens

present singular third person has kittens · participle present having kittens · participle past had kittens · past had kittens

1. informalTo become extremely upset.

   My teacher has kittens every time I get a question wrong.

   3 more examples

   Your mum will have kittens when she sees what you've done to your hair!

   He re-gurgled. “But this is terrible.” “Might be considerably better, I agree.” “Your uncle will be most upset.” “He'll have kittens.”

   1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter VII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC

   ‘Prepare yourself,’ he warned. ‘Your dad is having kittens.’

   2010, Jennifer Egan, “Safari”, in A Visit from the Goon Squad

2. informalTo be in a state of frantic nervousness.

   The guests are starting to arrive, but the hostess is having kittens because nothing is ready yet.

   1 more example

   Phipps went on: “One of our chaps, out on a reccy over the Bulgarian front, thought he saw something in the snow. Something fishy. He dropped down to have a dekko and nearly had kittens. What d'you think? Jerry's got a mass of stuff there—tanks, guns, lorries, every sort of heavy armament. All camouflaged. White.”

   2011 [1965], Olivia Manning, Friends And Heroes (The Balkan Trilogy), Random House, →ISBN

3. literalUsually of a female cat, to give birth to kittens.