"have a cow" meaning in English

See have a cow in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-have a cow.ogg [Australia] Forms: has a cow [present, singular, third-person], having a cow [participle, present], had a cow [participle, past], had a cow [past]
Etymology: Unknown. Popularized by the TV show The Simpsons where it was one of the catchphrases of Bart Simpson. Etymology templates: {{unk|en}} Unknown Head templates: {{en-verb|have<has,,had> a cow}} have a cow (third-person singular simple present has a cow, present participle having a cow, simple past and past participle had a cow)
  1. (slang) To get angry; have a fit. Tags: slang
    Sense id: en-have_a_cow-en-verb-MooIAzNt Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English light verb constructions, English negative polarity items, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 62 38 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 82 18 Disambiguation of English light verb constructions: 89 11 Disambiguation of English negative polarity items: 89 11 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 85 15
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see have, a, cow. Related terms: have kittens
    Sense id: en-have_a_cow-en-verb-~-AQ5DuR

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for have a cow meaning in English (3.7kB)

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  "lang": "English",
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        {
          "ref": "1959 April 1, The Des Moines Register, page 9",
          "text": "Dad says I'm too young to go steady and seems to think I'm going to drag a girl up the aisle instead of to a school dance. He won't let me watch rock 'n' roll shows, and he'd \"have a cow\" if he knew I watched 77 Sunset Strip.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "1990, “The Call of the Simpsons” (0:12:10 from the start), in The Simpsons, season 1, episode 7, spoken by Homer Simpson and Bart Simpson (Dan Castellaneta and Nancy Cartwright)",
          "text": "\"Of all the fates on heaven and earth, why did this one befall me?\" \"Don't have a cow, dad.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007, Julia Spencer-Fleming, In the Bleak Midwinter: A Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne Mystery, St. Martin's Publishing Group, page 69",
          "text": "“Pregnant. Holy shit.” “Alyson!” “Oh, Mummy, don't have a cow.”",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2014, Susan Mallery, THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, Harlequin, page 115",
          "text": "“Dammit, Kayla, you're pregnant. Don't pick up a suitcase,” her husband demanded. “It's just a little one.” “Put it down now.” “Don't have a cow, Patrick. I'm pregnant, not incapacitated.”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "My mom had a cow when I came in late."
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        "To get angry; have a fit."
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        "(slang) To get angry; have a fit."
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      "id": "en-have_a_cow-en-verb-~-AQ5DuR",
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          "a",
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      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "word": "have kittens"
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          "ref": "1959 April 1, The Des Moines Register, page 9",
          "text": "Dad says I'm too young to go steady and seems to think I'm going to drag a girl up the aisle instead of to a school dance. He won't let me watch rock 'n' roll shows, and he'd \"have a cow\" if he knew I watched 77 Sunset Strip.",
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          "text": "“Dammit, Kayla, you're pregnant. Don't pick up a suitcase,” her husband demanded. “It's just a little one.” “Put it down now.” “Don't have a cow, Patrick. I'm pregnant, not incapacitated.”",
          "type": "quotation"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.