have kittens

Verb

have kittens (third-person singular simple present has kittens, present participle having kittens, simple past and past participle had kittens)

1. (informal) To become extremely upset.
   • Your mum will have kittens when she sees what you've done to your hair!
   • My teacher has kittens every time I get a question wrong.
2. (informal) To be in a state of frantic nervousness.
   • The guests are starting to arrive, but the hostess is having kittens because nothing is ready yet.
   • 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...2011 [1965], Olivia Manning, Friends And Heroes (The Balkan Trilogy), Random House, →ISBN
3. (literal) Usually of a female cat, to give birth to kittens.