tear one's hair

Idioms

Also, tear out one's hair. Be greatly upset or distressed, as in I'm tearing my hair over these errors. This expression alludes to literally tearing out one's hair in a frenzy of grief or anger, a usage dating from a.d. 1000. Today it is generally hyperbolic.

Example Sentences

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tear one's hair

No reason to tear one's hair over that!

From A Russian Gentleman by Aksakov, S. T. (Sergei Timofeevich)

One could tear one's hair to see him tied down by this large family till all his best days are gone.'

From The Pillars of the House, V1 by Yonge, Charlotte Mary

It is folly to tear one's hair in sorrow, as if grief could be assuaged by baldness.—Cicero.

From Many Thoughts of Many Minds A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age by Klopsch, Louis

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023