gall

dip (one's) pen in gall

To write something that conveys one's animosity, anger, or malice. The critic must have dipped his pen in gall before writing that very negative review.
See also: dip, gall, pen

gall and wormwood

Strong feelings of bitterness and resentment. ("Gall" is bile and "wormwood" is a bitter plant.) Ever since I lost the election for school president, I only feel gall and wormwood when I think of my unworthy opponent.
See also: and, gall, wormwood

have the gall to (do something)

To be bold and brazen enough to do something. I can't believe that intern had the gall to ask for a week off on her first day. A: "I can't believe their coach had the gall to pull the goalie with so much time left." B: "Yeah, but if they tie the score, he'll look like a genius."
See also: gall, have

wormwood and gall

Bitterness, resentment, disappointment, or humiliation; a figurative source of such feelings. Let me tell you, the life of a book publisher is full of wormwood and gall these days. My aunt relished cruel, embittered opinions on people and the world, seeming to prefer feasting on wormwood and gall than the many joys life brings.
See also: and, gall, wormwood
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

have the gall to do something

Fig. to have sufficient arrogance to do something. I bet you don't have the gall to argue with the mayor. Only Jane has the gall to ask the boss for a second raise this month.
See also: gall, have
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

dip your pen in gall

write unpleasantly or spitefully.
Gall is another word for bile, the bitter secretion of the liver; it is used in many places in the Bible as a metaphor for bitterness or affliction. See also wormwood and gall (at wormwood).
See also: dip, gall, pen

wormwood and gall

a source of bitter mortification and grief. literary
Gall is bile, a substance secreted by the liver and proverbial for its bitterness, while wormwood is an aromatic plant with a bitter taste. The expression originated in reference to various passages in the Bible, for example Lamentations 3:19: ‘Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall’.
See also: and, gall, wormwood
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

unmitigated gall

Absolute impudence, out-and-out effrontery. The use of gall, which strictly speaking means the liver’s secretion, or bile, and its extension to bitterness of any kind, dates from about a.d. 1000. In late nineteenth-century America, however, it began to be used in the sense of “nerve” or “brazenness.” Its frequent pairing with unmitigated, meaning “unmodified” or “intense,” occurred in the twentieth century.
See also: gall
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • dip (one's) pen in gall
  • dip your pen in gall
  • give the glad eye
  • at (one's) doorstep
  • at doorstep
  • beget
  • hate begets hate
  • hate breeds hate
  • at (one's) expense
  • butthurt
References in periodicals archive
Are gall midge species (Diptera, Cecidomyiidae) host-plant specialists?
First New World record of a gall midge from palms: a new species of Contarinia (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) from Geonoma cuneata in Costa Rica.
Illustrated and annotated checklist of Brazilian gall morphotypes.
* Filzgall: a mite-induced gall formed exclusively by increased density of trichomes and emergences, and sometimes parenchyma homogenization.
* Gall: a structure originated by the stimuli of specific species of animals, fungi, bacteria, virus, or parasitic plants, causing simple or complex alterations in plant histogenesis and/or morphogenesis.
Inquilines occupy only a single gall where they remain through their immature stage (Stone et al.
Nevertheless, successors do not interact with inducers in time, and cecidophages should be considered organisms that may not possess a close phylogenetic association with the inducer, and which are able to feed off more than 1 gall, and are incapable of stimulating new gall tissue production.
Type-1 Gall Bladder Perforation: Rare Complication of Cholelithiasis.
Gall bladder perforation: A rare complication of Acute Cholecystitis.
Another look at the phylogenetic relationships and intercontinental biogeography of eastern Asian - North American Rhus gall aphids (Hemiptera: Aphididae: Eriosomatinae): Evidence from mitogenome sequences via genome skimming.
The classification of the Chinese gall aphids with descriptions of three new genera and six new species from Meitan, Kweichow.
courbaril (Fabaceae) presented two gall types (conical and lenticular).
(2008) showed in a study of gall occurrence in Restinga (coastal shrubs) in Bertioga, Sao Paulo, that Thysanoptera induced marginal leaf roll galls, and we also observed this in our study (Figure 7).
Gall volumes and parasitism rates (i.e., parasitized cell number/total cell number x 100) were transformed using V log-formula and Freeman & Tukey's formula [35], respectively, and analysed separately via ANOVA, taking into account "year" and "site" as random factors, while "management" was considered a fixed factor.
All indigenous species recruited to the new host (ACGW) are idiobiont parasitoids mainly associated with oak gall wasps.