gnash one's teeth

Idioms  

1. Express a strong emotion, usually rage, as in When Jonah found out he was not going to be promoted, he gnashed his teeth. This expression is actually redundant, since gnash means “to strike the teeth together.” Edmund Spenser used it in The Faerie Queene (1590): “And both did gnash their teeth.” [Late 1500s]

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Example Sentences

But at times energy failed and one felt inclined to gnash one's teeth at the futility of it all.

From Project Gutenberg

In Korea." he writes, "invasion was repelled, and in such manner as to remind the world that an invader need not be destroyed to be repulsed.To gnash one's teeth because the invader escaped destruction is to revert to that concept of 'total war' which is no longer possible without mutual total destruction.

From Time Magazine Archive

A large number of burghers from Harrismith and a small part of the Vrede commando, although they had already made good their escape, rode quietly from their farms into Harrismith, and there surrendered to General Sir Hector Macdonald.—One could gnash one's teeth to think that a nation should so readily rush to its own ruin!

From Project Gutenberg

It's a grand thing to be mad! to be peeped at like a wild lion through the iron bars—to gnash one's teeth and howl, through the long still night, to the merry ring of a heavy chain and to roll and twine among the straw, transported with such brave music.

From Project Gutenberg

Her insulting taciturnity was enough sometimes to make one gnash one’s teeth with rage. 

From Project Gutenberg