spit venom

present singular third person spits venom · participle present spitting venom · participle past spat venom · past spat venom

1. To show great anger or contempt, usually in speech.

   Her lips pursed as if to spit venom at the word; pursed they remained. All she did was to take her glove and rub hard at a spot on the window-pane.

   1982 April 29, Virginia Woolf, An Unwritten Novel, in A Haunted House and Other Short Stories, Granada Publishing, page 16

   2 more examples

   For some reason it hurt that he didn’t trust her. She’d had people spit venom at her, but this bothered her more because it was so unwarranted. As far as she knew, she’d never met him before yesterday, had never met anyone who knew him well. So why?

   2006, Natasha Oakley, chapter 3, in Millionaire Dad: Wife Needed, Mills & Boon, page 72

   When his mother had been alive, she would join in too and together they would eat and spit venom at her. She had a sharper tongue and sharper memory and could even say on which date at what hour her father had let them down.

   2009, Bulbul Sharma, chapter 9, in Eating Women, Telling Tales: Stories about Food, Zubaan Books, page 107

   Synonyms: spit nails, spit blood, spit tacks, spit chips, spit feathers