November 4, 1999

pissed off

Since you mentioned it, . . . . any info on the origin of "pissed off"? The idea of being "pissed off at someone" never made any sense to me; I wonder if it could be an alteration of "feeling as if pissed off by someone", i.e. a feeling of resentment at being ignored, dismissed as worthless, treated carelessly, etc. (cf. "he pissed away all his money"). If the expression did begin this way, it could have become, successively, "I feel pissed...", "I am pissed...", "I'm pissed at you."

I was rather pissed to find that there is not much evidence out there to substantiate or dismiss your excellent guess. We can be sure that the angry meaning of pissed off became popular among the Armed Forces in World War II, and entered into mainstream use during the post-war years. In 1946 it was defined as a new word in American Speech XXI: "This means roughly, fed-up, irritated, depressed." Some linguists and historians think the expression must have been well known during the war years, citing a story about General Eisenhower's dog. The story goes that the dog (Felix) urinated on a map and the officers joked that the enemy was "pissed off." (Leonard Mosely, Marshall, 1982).

In the 1970s, pissed off became much more common in British English, and continued to gain popularity in the U.S. As its usefulness grew, several new variants of the expression sprouted. For the first time we find pissed (no "off"): "I'm pissed at people in the movement . . ." (It 9-23, 1971). This reduction of pissed off to pissed is primarily American; in British English pissed continues to be an adjective for drunkenness. During the 1970s and 1980s, pissed off was also frequently euphemized as peed off or P.O.'d. Though the phrase is still considered vulgar by many, these euphemisms are less common in the 1990s. Recently, piss off is also found as a noun, for the thing or person that makes someone angry: "Her boyfriend is such a piss off!"

In spite of all the chronological information available for pissed off, we'll probably have to keep guessing about its relationship to the "piss" family of expressions. One source claims that the "go away" meaning of piss off is found in the late 19th century, but there are no citations for this time period. Piss about and piss away date from the 1940s or 1950s, so it's unlikely that these expressions were the source of the current pissed.

However mysterious its origins, pissed off has captured the spirit of modern life for a lot of people. "Pissed Off Women" campaign for social change in California, the "Pissed-Off Poetry Corner" is full of angst and verse, and there are plenty of Web sites where you can complain about the things that piss you off.

Heather