curl someone's hair

English

Alternative forms

• make someone's hair curl

Pronunciation

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Verb

curl someone's hair (third-person singular simple present curls someone's hair, present participle curling someone's hair, simple past and past participle curled someone's hair)

1. (idiomatic) To frighten, dismay, or excite someone thoroughly.
   • 1903, Andy Adams, chapter 7, in The Log of a Cowboy:

     "I'm not hankering for the dramatic in life, but we had a run last night that would curl your hair."

   • 1917, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 16, in The Sheriff's Son:

     "Tell the son-of-a-gun for me that next time we meet I'll curl his hair right."

   • 1947, Harry Sylvester, Moon Gaffney (1976 edition), ISBN 780405093593, p. 116:

     "I'd have written him such a letter as would have curled his hair."

   • 2004 October 4, Abigail Van Buren, “Dear Abby”, in Beaver County Times, retrieved 10 October 2010:

     After I printed that letter the volume of mail I received from survivors of child sexual abuse curled my hair.

   • 2008, Jackie Kessler, Hell's Belles‎^[1], →ISBN, page 317:

     Yanking open the door to the bathroom, I was greeted with a stink foul enough to curl my hair.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see curl,‎ someone's,‎ hair.

Related terms

• hair-curling