soreheads

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.
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
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

   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