bellow like a (wounded) bull, to
bellow like a (wounded) bull, to
To scream in outrage. The simile is almost 2,500 years old, from the time of the Greek poet Aeschylus, who wrote, “He bellowed like a bull whose throat has just been cut.” Strictly speaking this cliché is a tautology, since to bellow means “to roar as a bull,” and has done so since the era of Middle English. Shakespeare wrote, “Jupiter became a bull and bellow’d” (The Winter’s Tale, 4.3).
See also: bellow, like
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- scream the place down
- like a house afire/on fire
- crazy as a coot/loon
- red flag/rag to a bull, like a
- piercing scream
- take to it like a duck to water, to
- live like a prince, to
- die of throat trouble
- throat gag
- slow as (slower than) molasses (in January)