Of American-English origin, the colloquial phrase to fly off the handle means: to become very agitated or angry, especially without warning or adequate reason.
In this phrase, the image is of the head of an axe or other tool becoming detached from its handle.
The following, from The United States Gazette (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) of Tuesday 22nd April 1828, evoked an accident caused by the blade of an axe flying off its handle:
On Saturday morning lats [sic], two sons of Mr. Jonas Hackman were engaged at chopping wood on Mr. Frankenfield’s land, in Bethelem [sic] tsp. when the axe of one of them flew off the handle and struck his brother, aged about 17 years, with the sharp edge on the breast, the bone of which was entirely severed by the blow. A surgeon was immediately sent for and notwithstanding the wound had opened so that it stood at least four inches apart when he arrived, he succeeded in closing it within a quarter of an inch. The boy is doing well and hopes are entertained of a speedy recovery.—Easton Sent.
The earliest occurrences of the phrase to fly off the handle that I have found are as follows, in chronological order:
1-: From Shall the fair expression of the Public voice be defeated by the Delegates?, by ‘Cumberland’, published in the Portland Gazette and Maine Advertiser (Portland, Maine, USA) of Tuesday 24th September 1816:
The truth is apparent, that the party themselves are dissatisfied with the leanness of their numerical majority. They hardly attempt to conceal their discontent and disappointment. They are sensible, that the result is neither what they expected, nor near what they pretended. They promised themselves an overwhelming majority in favour of the measure, and they perceive with confusion and astonishment, that with all their arts and efforts they have failed in obtaining even the poor five ninths. Their chagrin and mortification therefore are inexpressible. Hence their flouncing and floundering about the calculations, their trial of all the rules of arithmetic, and their despair at discerning that they must experience an abortion. They know, that the question is decided against them, and they are now ready to fly off the handle, and if fraud should fail, to carry the thing by main force.
2-: From the Richmond Enquirer (Richmond, Virginia, USA) of Tuesday 9th December 1823:
Many of the presses in this State which profess to support Mr. Adams, are as little to be depended on as the Spanish Constitutional Generals. Every now and then we find some of them flying off the handle. And although they denounce all others who are suspected of coolness in his cause, yet they desert him themselves without the least ceremony. Read the following from the “Nautical Intelligencer,” printed in Falmouth, Mass. Shall we not next week hear it said that this article was inserted in the absence of the special editor of the Presidential department? By the way, why is it that some twig of the law is appointed to direct a certain “department” in most of our country newspapers? Is it necessary that this corps should be organized merely for the purpose of telling the people that there is “one candidate who makes no efforts to promote his own election?”
[Boston Statesman.
3-: From The National Gazette and Literary Register (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) of Saturday 10th January 1824:
From the Harrisburg Chronicle, Dec. 8.
King Caucus—Dead.—The report made in the House of Representatives, on Saturday last, by Mr. Jonathan Roberts, is really a novelty in the history of report making:—It assumes that Governor Hiester intended to cast suspicion upon representative purity, and under cover of vindicating this, a stout argument is brought forward in support of legislative caucusing. And notwithstanding that the said Jonathan Roberts supported the election—and we believe the administration of Governor Hiester, until John Binns flew off the handle—this “Cato of the Senate” does not consider it beneath him to asperse the late Governor by insinuation, when he conceives that to be auxiliary to his argument.
4-: From Brother Jonathan: Or, The New Englanders (Edinburgh: William Blackwood – London: T. Cadell – 1825), by the U.S. author John Neal (1793-1876):
“Our Watty—he walks into one o’ the rest, I guess, about right. Then for it! away they go! off like a shot. Bald Eagle; he runs like a deer; an’ Watty—he takes right into the woods; an’ then back again; which, when I seed him next, he had his face painted—and so I paints mine. “Oh, my!”—“nation!”—“yah! how they pulled foot, when they seed us commin’. Most off the handle, some o’ the tribe, I guess.”
“God forbid!” exclaimed the preacher, “we shall have the Mohawks upon us!”
5-: From the Pennsylvania Intelligencer, and Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Journal (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA) of Monday 17th March 1828:
Our Jackson friends secretly apprehend more danger to their idol than they are willing to confess.
The majorities given to general Jackson are sousers [?] indeed, and are no doubt intended to strengthen the faith of such as do not altogether relish some of the general’s doings, and therefore might fly off the handle.
6-: From An Advertisement, a short story published in Ps and Qs (Boston (Massachusetts): Bowles & Dearborn, 1828):
At this my heart flew off the handle—I sprang up—and whether the violence of my motion frightened Amaranth, or whether she was capsized by a whisk of my queue, I know not; but as I seized my hat and cane and rushed out of the door, I saw that she was sprawled on the floor, a circumstance, which gave me no uneasiness in that hour of hope, for I went out like a north wind.
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