hair of the dog that bit you

Cultural  

1. A remedy that contains a small amount of whatever caused the ailment: “When Anne had a bad hangover, Paul offered her a Bloody Mary and said, ‘Have a little of the hair of the dog that bit you.’”

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hair of the dog that bit you Idioms  

1. Whatever made you ill used as a remedy, especially alcohol as a hangover cure. For example, A little hair of the dog will cure that hangover in no time. This expression, already a proverb in John Heywood's 1546 compendium, is based on the ancient folk treatment for dogbite of putting a burnt hair of the dog on the wound. It is often shortened, as in the example.

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Example Sentences

But the most common remedy has always been figurative: to pluck a hair of the dog that bit you.

From Slate

An 1889 dictionary of American slang defines a “corpse reviver” as a dram of spirits, tying into the old notion that a bit of alcohol, “the hair of the dog that bit you,” would help alleviate the effects of a hangover.

From Washington Post

Night had come, in fact, when the larger number of the officers met at a solemn “Dämmerschoppen” at the Casino,—a process of applying hair of the dog that bit you to cure the injury.

From Project Gutenberg

My dear sir, a hair of the dog that bit you is clearly indicated.

From Project Gutenberg

The excrement of a mosquito is considered as efficacious as it is scarce, and here, as in Europe in the Middle Ages, the hair of the dog that bit you is used to heal the bite and to prevent hydrophobia.

From Project Gutenberg