fly off the handle
fly off the handle verb: to become very angry or enraged; to throw a fit or go crazy.
Verb
fly off the handle (third-person singular simple present flies off the handle, present participle flying off the handle, simple past flew off the handle, past participle flown off the handle)
- To become very angry or enraged; to throw a fit or go crazy.
- My dad flew off the handle when he saw the F grade on my report card.
- But he added: “Look, it happens to everybody. I’ve flown off the handle way worse than Elon Musk did in the last 24 hours.”2025 June 7, Edward Helmore, quoting JD Vance, “Trump warns Musk of ‘very serious consequences’ if he backs Democrats”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
fly off the handle meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Persian
fly off the handle in Tamil
- கடுங்கோபத்தில் சீறு, ஆக்ரோசமடை
fly off the handle in Bengali
- খুব রাগান্বিত, ক্রুদ্ধ হওয়া, ক্ষিপ্ত হওয়া, পাগল হয়ে যাওয়া
fly off the handle in Persian
- to become very angry
- از کوره دررفتن az kure darraftan
Forms of fly off the handle
| third-person singular present | flies off the handle |
|---|---|
| present participle | flying off the handle |
| past | flew off the handle |
| past participle | flown off the handle |
Origin of fly off the handle
From the image of an axe head becoming loose and suddenly flying free of its handle, a vivid metaphor for losing control. The phrase is an early 19th-century American idiom, with printed examples first appearing c. the 1810s–1830s.
Questions about fly off the handle
- What does fly off the handle mean?
- Fly off the handle means to become very angry or enraged; to throw a fit or go crazy.
- What is fly off the handle in Tamil?
- Fly off the handle in Tamil is கடுங்கோபத்தில் சீறு, ஆக்ரோசமடை. See Fly off the handle meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is fly off the handle?
- Fly off the handle is a verb.
- What is the past tense of fly off the handle?
- The past tense of fly off the handle is flew off the handle.
Words near fly off the handle in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fly off the handle (page history and authors); fly off the handle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fly off the handle (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-fly off the handle.wav.
Cite this entry: “fly off the handle.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fly_off_the_handle. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.