Word.ws English Dictionary

get one's shirt out

get one's shirt out verb: to become angry or annoyed; to lose one's temper.

Verb

get one's shirt out (third-person singular simple present gets one's shirt out, present participle getting one's shirt out, simple past got one's shirt out, past participle (UK) got one's shirt out or (US) gotten one's shirt out)

  1. (dated, idiomatic) To become angry or annoyed; to lose one's temper.
    • "All right, sir, all right," said Chizzlem, lighting a huge cigar; "there it is, don't get your shirt out about it. I daresay I'll get along well enough without you. Though why you should be ashamed at what some of the flyest men do regularly, I can't tell."1883, Robert Harborough Sherard, A Bartered Honour: A Novel, Volume 1, Remington, page 183
    • I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him to send you round here again or if he does, says he, I'll have him summonsed up before the court, so I will, for trading without a licence. And he after stuffing himself till he's fit to burst. Jesus, I had to laugh at the little jewy getting his shirt out.1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Episode 12: The Cyclops

Forms of get one's shirt out

third-person singular presentgets one's shirt out
present participlegetting one's shirt out
pastgot one's shirt out
past participle UKgot one's shirt out
past participle USgotten one's shirt out

Origin of get one's shirt out

From the custom of taking one's shirt off before fighting (after becoming annoyed).

Questions about get one's shirt out

What does get one's shirt out mean?
Get one's shirt out means to become angry or annoyed; to lose one's temper.
What part of speech is get one's shirt out?
Get one's shirt out is a verb.
What is the past tense of get one's shirt out?
The past tense of get one's shirt out is got one's shirt out.

Words near get one's shirt out in the dictionary

  1. get one's priorities right
  2. get one's priorities straight
  3. get one's rocks off
  4. get one's shine box
  5. get one's shinebox
  6. get one's shirt out
  7. get one's shit pushed in
  8. get one's shit together
  9. get one's shorts in a knot
  10. get one's shtick together
  11. get one's skates on

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: get one's shirt out (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-get one's shirt out.ogg.

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