See Red
Meaning
Become angry; lose self-control.
Origin
The colour red has many associations – heat, heated emotions and violence, communism, a sign of warning (as in traffic lights etc.), ripeness (in fruit etc.), the colour representing the British Empire on maps and, of course, blood.
It is widely thought that ‘see red’ derives from the sport of bull-fighting and the toreador’s use of a red cape to deceive the bull.
The phrase is known from the early 20th century and so is easily predated by the ancient sport, and more to the point, the knowledge of bull- fighting parlance in English-speaking countries, which dates from the mid-18th century.
That proposed derivation is backed up by the existence of the earlier phrase – ‘like a red rag to a bull’. This is found in Charlotte Mary Yonge’s novel The pillars of the house, 1873:
“Jack will do for himself if he tells Wilmet her eyes are violet; it is like a red rag to a bull.”
Bulls can’t actually see in colour and are attracted by the waving of the cloth rather than the redness. That doesn’t detract from the red cape theory as the origin of this phrase however.
