red rag to a bull

plural red rags to a bull · alternative red rag · alternative red rag to bulls

1. Something that will enrage another particular person.

   Simply mentioning the word "nationalism" to him is like a red rag to a bull.

   4 more examples

   This was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was crossing the river at the time) that I judge it made him blind, because he ran over the steering-oar of a trading-scow.

   1883, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 6, in Life on the Mississippi, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, →OCLC

   Any suspicion of impropriety was to Elizabeth-Jane like a red rag to a bull.

   1886 May, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXX, in The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC

   He did not say that he had been visiting among his neighbours; this to Pryer would have been like a red rag to a bull.

   1873–1884 (date written), Samuel Butler, edited by R[ichard] A[lexander] Streatfeild, The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, published 1903, →OCLC

   The rolling around and screams of anguish from Porro though were like a red rag to a bull for the Scotland support, who howled and harangued his every touch before he was withdrawn at the interval, presumably for his own safety.

   2023 March 28, Graeme McGarry, “Scott McTominay earns place in history as Scotland stun Spain”, in The Herald

   Synonyms: red flag to a bull