on the warpath

1. From a Native American expression for war, to be “on the warpath” is to be exceedingly angry and to be inclined to take some hostile action: “Watch out! John is on the warpath today.”

Idioms and Phrases

Furious and on a hostile course of action, as in When the meat wasn't delivered, the chef went on the warpath . This expression was an English translation of a Native American term that literally means “a path used by a war party.” Go on the war path thus meant “go to battle.” It was used in this way by James Fenimore Cooper in The Deerslayer (1841); its present hyperbolic use dates from the late 1800s.

Related Words

• desperate
• enraged
• fierce
• frantic
• frenetic
• frenzied
• incensed
• livid
• raging
• vehement
• violent