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bite someone's head off

bite someone's head off idiom

Also, snap someone's head off. Scold or speak very angrily to someone, as in Ask her to step down from the board? She'd bite my head off! The first expression, dating from the mid-1900s, replaced the much earlier bite someone's nose off (16th century); the variant was first recorded in 1886.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.