hit the ceiling, to

hit the ceiling

To react with extreme anger. Mom will hit the ceiling when she finds out we broke the vase by playing ball in the house again.See also: ceiling, hit

hit the ceiling

 and hit the roofFig. to get very angry. She really hit the ceiling when she found out what happened. My dad'll hit the roof when he finds out that I wrecked his car.See also: ceiling, hit

hit the ceiling

Also, hit the roof. Explode in anger, as in Jane hit the ceiling when she saw her grades, or Dad hit the roof when he didn't get his usual bonus. The first expression dates from the early 1900s; the second is a version of a 16th-century locution, up in the house roof or house-top, meaning "enraged." See also: ceiling, hit

hit the ceiling

COMMON If someone hits the ceiling, they suddenly become very angry and shout at someone. When I told him what happened, he hit the ceiling. Compare with hit the roof.See also: ceiling, hit

hit the ceiling

fly into a sudden rage. 2004 Scarlett Elizabeth Cooper Nuts & Bolts When Dr John Pulaski arrived home that night, he hit the ceiling. ‘Why are you bringing other people into our home?’ he demanded of his wife. See also: ceiling, hit

hit the ceiling

and hit the roof tv. to get very angry. She really hit the ceiling when she found out what happened. See also: ceiling, hit

hit the ceiling, to

To lose one’s temper. The image of rising with fury seems quite natural. This expression comes from early twentieth-century America and soon crossed the Atlantic. P. G. Wodehouse used it in Very Good, Jeeves! (1930): “I haven’t breathed a word to Angela. She’d hit the ceiling.” It echoes a locution dating from the sixteenth century, to be up in the house roof (or at the house-top), meaning to be enraged. See also raise the roof.See also: hit