sorehead

Noun

sorehead (countable and uncountable, plural soreheads)

1. A person who has a tendency to be angry or to feel offended.
   • Don't be a sorehead! Forgive, forget and get on with your life.
   • Of course, my competitive nature occasionally crossed the line into being a sorehead and poor loser.1998, Phil Craft, Stan Friedland, An Orphan Has Many Parents, page 41
2. (US, derogatory, political slang) A politician who is dissatisfied through failure, lack of recognition, etc.
   • In most of these areas there was improvement between 1920, the year of the second Farmer-Labor ballot and the last election in which the coalition was able to use sorehead tactics, and the special senatorial election of 1923.1989, Richard M. Valelly, Radicalism in the States: The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party and the American Political Economy, page 41
   • Officials walked a tightrope because disappointed voters could join or, if need he, form an opposing coalition, and they could cozy up to "soreheads" who were encouraging merger with Chicago.2002, Louise Carroll Wade, Chicago's Pride, page 331
3. (uncountable) Infection in sheep by the nematode Elaeophora schneideri; elaeophorosis.
   • And sometimes, the bugs themselves are the predators, the killers and consumers of elk.
     I think of the green-headed horsefly and its bloody conspirator, the sorehead roundworm—Elaeophora schneideri.1998, David Petersen, Elkheart: A Personal Tribute to Wapiti and Their World, page 107
   • Elaeophora schneideri is a filarial nematode that has been reported primarily in wildlife species in the western United States, including mule deer and bighorn sheep. Elaeophorosis (sorehead) is uncommon in sheep and goats.2012, D. G. Pugh, N. (Nickie) Baird, Sheep and Goat Medicine, unnumbered page

   Synonyms:

   elaeophorosis, filarial dermatitis

4. (uncountable) Fowlpox.
   • Sorehead is a prevailing trouble in Hawaii, but I am convinced that much sorehead, if not all of it, can be averted if we keep our chicks off the ground until they are at least three months old.1905, F. L. Hoogs, Paradise of the Pacific, volumes 18-19, page 45
   • The two principal causes of death among chicks has been sorehead and coccidiosis.1922, University of Hawaii (Honolulu), Agricultural Dept, Annual Report of the Agricultural Department, Volume 4, page 103