Passion, temper. Another form of dandruff. See quotations 1801 and 1853.
1801. A certain disorder in the head, called by the learned the dander, or dandriff.—‘Spirit of the Farmer’s Museum,’ p. 278.
1832. My dander began to rise, and I could not hold in any longer.—Seba Smith, ‘Major Jack Downing,’ p. 178 (1860).
1837–40. He was fairly ryled, and got his dander up.—Haliburton, ‘The Clockmaker’ (1862), p. 31. (N.E.D.)
1843. Their utter impotence in the storm of passion reminds me of the directions given by a good New-England deacon to his choleric son. ‘Whenever you feel your dander rising,’ said he, ‘be sure to say the Lord’s prayer, my son, or else the alphabet clean through; and long before you git to the eend on ’t, you ’ll be as cool as a cucumber, or an iceberg.’—Knick. Mag., xxii. 122 (Aug.).
1846.
| Wut ’ll make ye act like freemen? | |
| Wut ’ll git your dander riz? | |
Lowell, ‘Biglow Papers,’ No. 1. |
1846. Take care how you raise my dander; I can shoot sum yet!—W. T. Porter, ed., ‘A Quarter Race in Kentucky,’ etc., p. 67 (Phila.).
a. 1848. [Anger] is like a quick-tempered woman when her dander is up.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ i. 21.
1848. Smugglin means stealin, down in Georgia, and when he sed that my dander was up in a minit.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 187 (Phila.).
1849. We are not very good judges of the state of the market, but we hear that ink is at a stand, and “dander is riz.”—Frontier Guardian, June 27 (Orson Hyde, editor).
1850. I war ’tarmined on goin’; my dander was up, and I swore I wood go, tellin’ them if I coodent travel ’bout much, I could take a stand.—H. C. Lewis (‘Madison Tensas’), ‘Odd Leaves,’ p. 172.
1851. My dander was up as big as an elephant.—M. L. Byrn, ‘An Arkansaw Doctor,’ p. 56 (Phila.).
1851. The “bull moose” is a formidable foe when he “gets his dander up.”—John S. Springer, ‘Forest Life,’ p. 124 (N.Y.).
1853. “Well, what of it?” now yelled the Downeaster, getting his dandruff up.—Daily Morning Herald (St. Louis), March 14.
1860. They wrangled over the matter until the dander of each deacon rose to fever heat.—Cleveland Plain Dealer, n.d.
