▪ I. angry, a.
(ˈæŋgrɪ)
Forms: 4 angre, (angerich), 4–5 angri, 4–7 angery, 5 angrye, (hangry), 6 anggre, 6–7 angrie, 4– angry.
[f. anger n. + -y1: cf. hungry. With senses 2 and 3 cf. Fr. fâché de and fâché contre. Comp. -er, -est.]
† 1. Full of trouble actively; troublesome, vexatious, annoying, trying, sharp. Obs.
| c 1360 Gloss. in Rel. Ant. I. 8 Molestus, angri. 1375 Barbour Bruce v. 70 Myne auenture heir tak will I, Quhethir it be eisfull or angry. c 1400 Rom. Rose 2628 To liggen thus is an angry thyng. a 1667 Jer. Taylor Serm. III. 267 God had provided a severe and angry education to chastise the frowardness of a young spirit. |
† 2. Passively affected by trouble; vexed, troubled, grieved. Obs.
| 1375 Barbour Bruce iii. 530 The hart is sorowfull or angry. c 1394 P. Pl. Crede 553 Angerich I wandrede the Austyns to prove. [Skeat conjectures angerlich.] 1485 Caxton Paris & V. 42 Parys was moche angry bycause he sawe wel that it was moche peryllous. |
3. a. Of persons: actively affected against the agent or cause of trouble; feeling or showing resentment; enraged, wrathful, irate.
| c 1386 Chaucer Pars. T. 510 Thanne wole he be angry [v.r. angery, hangry] and answeren hokerly. 1440 Partonope 2556, I am wroth and in my hert angry. 1440 Promp. Parv., Angrye, Iracundus, bilosus. 1547 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 52 He that will be angry without cause, Must be at one without amendes. 1647 Cowley Dialogue ix. in Mistr., I'm angry, but my wrath will prove, More Innocent than did thy Love. 1718 Lady M. Montague Lett. I. xxii. 69 Very angry that I will not lie like other travellers. 1750 Johnson Rambl. No. 74 ¶4 Angry without daring to confess his resentment. 1864 Burton Scot Abr. I. iv. 191 Angry letters to his angrier mistress. |
b. Const. (of, for, upon, obs.) at, about, the occasion; at a person when the subjective feeling is denoted, with a person when the anger is manifested; but the tendency is to use with for both.
| c 1400 Destr. Troy xviii. 7703 There-at Ector was angry, & out of his wit. a 1450 Knt. de la Tour (1868) 25 He was angri of her governaunce. 1483 Caxton G. de la Tour E viij, God was therefore angry upon them. 1523 Ld. Berners Froissart I. ccxxxii. 317 Y⊇ prince..was in a maner angry of the honour y{supt} sir Bertram of Clesquy had gotten him. 1556 Chron. Grey Friars (1852) 88 Some were very anggre wyth hym because he sayd soo. 1579 Tomson Calvin's Serm. Tim. 115/2 Must they needes be angrie for it? 1599 Shakes. Hen. V, iv. i. 217, I should be angry with you. 1607 ― Timon iii. iii. 13 I'me angry at him. 1611 Bible Ps. vii. 11 God is angrie with the wicked euery-day. ― Eccles. v. 6 Wherefore should God be angrie at thy voyce? 1740 Chesterfield Lett. 61 I. 173, I shall be very angry at you. 1778 Burke Corr. (1844) II. 242 The people are angry with the ministry. 1875 Fam. Her. 21 Aug. 263/2 Major Porter is so awfully angry about it. 1883 Spofford in Harper's Mag. June 130/1, I felt a little angrier with myself. |
c. spec. Dissatisfied with and outspoken against the prevailing state of affairs, current beliefs, etc.; esp. in phr. angry young man (abbrev. A.Y.M.).
The expression ‘angry young man’ and variants of it became commonly used, esp. by journalists, after the production of J. Osborne's play Look Back in Anger (first performed 1956). The phrase did not occur in the play but was applied to Osborne by G. Fearon, a press reporter (see quot. 2 Oct. 1957), thence used particularly of young writers, usually of provincial and lower middle-class or working-class origin, who denounced or satirized the ‘Establishment’ (q.v.) and the abuses of the time; later applied by extension to any person, group, etc., in Britain and elsewhere who considered the times to be out of joint. For the formation, cf. ‘bright young thing’ (bright a. 7 b).
(a) (General and nonce uses.)
| 1937 [see anger n. 2 b]. 1941 ‘R. West’ Black Lamb (1942) I. 157 Their [sc. the Dalmatians'] instinct is to brace themselves against any central authority as if it were their enemy. The angry young men run about shouting. 1951 Leslie Paul (title) Angry Young Man. 1954 J. B. Priestley Magicians vi. 132 Too much resentment, too much cheap cynicism. And he's expecting too much, in the wrong way. He's the contemporary Angry Little Man. |
(b) With overt or implicit reference to Osborne's Look Back in Anger; also extended uses.
| 1956 Reporter (N.Y.) 18 Oct. 33/1 The angry young man is a stock character in literature. 1957 G. Fearon in Daily Tel. 2 Oct. 8/7, I had read John Osborne's play. When I met the author I ventured to prophesy that his generation would praise his play while mine would, in general, dislike it... ‘If this happens,’ I told him, ‘you would become known as the Angry Young Man.’ In fact, we decided then and there that henceforth he was to be known as that. 1957 Times Lit. Suppl. 4 Oct. 593/1 The ‘angry young men’ of England (who refuse to write grammatically and syntactically in order to flaunt their proletarian artistry). Ibid. 8 Nov. 674/1 Declaration is a volume of essays in which four of the ‘angry’ movement attempt to formalize their beliefs. 1958 Times 1 Feb. 7/5 The angry young man who feels that life is short, and that he must make his mark early by carping at established ideas and institutions. 1958 Spectator 11 July 67/2 A vigorous but implausible book about an AYM, strictly lower-class. 1958 Listener 4 Dec. 961/2 A fine, hard-bitten performance of an Angry Old Man. 1959 Times 1 Jan. 9/3 Mr. Forster..has been angry but never Angry. |
d. Angry Brigade, the name of an urban guerrilla organization responsible for a number of acts of terrorism in Great Britain, chiefly in the early 1970s.
| 1971 Times 14 Jan. 1/5 The handwritten letter, signed ‘The Angry Brigade’ had been posted before first collection yesterday. 1971 Guardian 15 Jan. 1/4 Detectives investigating the bomb attack on the home of Mr Robert Carr..regard a letter sent to the ‘Guardian’, signed by ‘The Angry Brigade’, as one of the most important leads in the case. 1975 G. Carr Angry Brigade iv. 71 The name.., thought up at a raucous, drunken Christmas party, would be ‘The Angry Brigade’. The words were a rough translation of Les Enragés. The ‘Brigade’ bit smacked slightly of the Spanish Civil War. 1984 Washington Post 1 July (Book World Suppl.) 4/1 We learn that Effie has become a member of the Angry Brigade (or Baader-Meinhof), given to crimes of violence, urban revolution and ultimately, the murder of police. |
4. Of mood or action: Moved or excited by anger.
| 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. xxxiv. xxix, The spirite of pacience Doth overcome the angry violence. 1670 Cotton Espernon iii. ix. 443 The angry trade of War. 1855 Tennyson Maud i. vi. vii, A man's own angry pride Is cap and bells for a fool. 1859 Geo. Eliot A. Bede 106 Even in his angriest moods. |
5. Bearing the physical marks of anger, looking or acting as if in anger; as an angry countenance, an angry sky, angry billows.
| 1393 Gower Conf. I. 283 So bere I forth an angry snoute. 1595 Shakes. John iv. iii. 149 Now..Doth dogged warre bristle his angry crest. 1611 Bible Prov. xxv. 23 An angrie countenance. 1687 Dryden Hind & P. iii. 270 He sheathes his paws, uncurls his angry mane. 1756 Burke Subl. & B. Wks. I. 197 The angry tones of wild beasts. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. §25. 185 Angry masses of cloud. 1878 R. Stevenson Inland Voy., The water, yellow and turbulent, swung with an angry eddy..and made an angry clatter along stony shores. |
6. Having the colour of an angry face, red. rare.
| 1632 G. Herbert Vertue in Temple 80 Sweet rose, whose hue angrie and brave. 1823 Lamb Elia Ser. i. xviii. (1865) 139 His waistcoat red and angry. |
7. Habitually under the influence of anger; hot-tempered, irritable, choleric, passionate. arch.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden (1865) I. 427 As men in þis londe Beeþ angry. 1398 ― Barth. De P.R. xviii. i. (1495) 736 Some beestes..be ryght wrathfull and angry. 1535 Coverdale Prov. xxi. 19 A chydinge and an angrie woman. 1650 tr. Bacon's Life & Death 10 The Turkey-Cock..An Angry Bird, And hath exceeding white flesh. 1703 Rowe Ulysses iv. i. 1695 Honour, This busie, angry thing, that scatters Discord. |
8. Inflamed, smarting, as a sore.
| 1579 Gosson Sch. Abuse (Arb.) 21 Curst sores with often touching waxe angry. 1611 Florio, Pedignoni, angrie kibes, chilblanes, or bloodie falles. 1676 Wiseman (J.) This serum..grows red and angry. 1863 Atkinson Yorksh. Gloss., Angry, applied to a sore (1) that looks very red and inflamed, (2) or that is very irritable and painful. Mod. The gouty toe is very angry. |
9. Sharp, acrid in taste. Sharp, keen, as appetite. rare.
| c 1325 E.E. Allit. P. B. 1035 Alum & alka[t]ran that angré arn boþe. 1859 Tennyson Enid 1082, I never ate with angrier appetite. |
10. Comb., as angry-eyed, angry-looking.
| 1865 Dickens Mut. Fr. 34 That angry eyed, buttoned-up, inflammatory-faced old gentleman. |
▸ angry white male n. (also with capital initials) Polit. (orig. and chiefly U.S.) a (usually working-class) white man with-right wing or reactionary views (typically including opposition to liberal anti-discriminatory policies), esp. viewed as representing an influential class of voter.
| [1990 Boston Globe (Nexis) 2 Nov. 21 Silber..stoked the angry, white-male vote by hoisting up the Bush-Ronald Reagan dartboards of welfare, black drugs and bitchy women.] 1991 Courier-Jrnl. (Louisville, Kentucky) 24 Mar. (Mag.) 4/4 The people who populated the citizens [sic] council meetings were mostly angry white males. So there's a real sense that the barricades were formed not only between black and white but between male and female. 1995 Guardian 20 June ii. 7/2 The Angry White Male backlash..has not materialised in the same way in Britain because the sort of preferential treatment encouraged in America is outlawed in this country. 2004 E. Alterman & M. Green Bk. on Bush vii. 125 The Republican ‘southern strategy’..permits Republican candidates to appeal to ‘angry white males’ while providing plausible deniability to the fair-minded of both sexes. |
▪ II. † ˈangry, v. Obs. rare—1.
[f. prec. Cf. to weary.]
To make angry, anger, provoke.
| 1642 Fuller Holy & Prof. St. v. i. 358 Nothing angrieth her so much as when modest men affect a deafnesse. |
▪ III. angry, n.
(ˈæŋgrɪ)
[f. the adj.]
An ‘angry’ person (see angry a. 3 c); an ‘angry young man’.
| 1957 Times Lit. Suppl. 15 Nov. 689/3 Writers, such as Mrs. Lessing, who have never been called Angries at all. 1958 Observer 14 Sept. 4/5 The ‘beat generation’ is beginning to acquire the same kind of dubious place in American culture as the Young Angries in Britain. 1959 Bookseller 7 Mar. 1133/1 The ‘beats’ are represented by Anatole Broyard..and Carl Solomon; the ‘angries’ by John Wain, Colin Wilson, John Osborne, [etc.]. |