flip one's lid

English

Alternative forms

• flip the lid

Etymology

Originally an Americanism; from the analogy of a boiling pot explosively popping off its lid due to built-up internal pressure.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Verb

flip one's lid (third-person singular simple present flips one's lid, present participle flipping one's lid, simple past and past participle flipped one's lid)

1. (idiomatic, informal) To become explosively angry, to lose one's temper.

   Synonyms: flip out, flip one's wig, blow one's top, blow a gasket

   • 1948, Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead, New York, Toronto: Rinehart & Company, page 113:

     Wait, you'll see. Three hours on a night like this is enough to make you flip your lid.

   • 2003, Radiohead (lyrics and music), “A Wolf at the Door”, in Hail to the Thief, performed by Thom Yorke:

     Drag him out your window / Dragging out the dead / Singing "I miss you" / Snakes and ladders / Flip the lid

   • 2009, Dee Kassabian, My Four Fathers and Other Short Stories, page 45:

     His parents flipped their lids when the two lovebugs got hitched. Jonnie couldn't stand the fact that her beautiful young son, gone so long over seas, had now tangled up with an older woman, and even worse, an older divorced woman […]

2. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (slang) To be very scared.

See also

• put a lid on

Further reading

• Jonathon Green (2024) “flip one's lid v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang
• “flip one's lid”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “flip (your lid)”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.