Pissed off

Posted by Smokey Stover on May 09, 2009 at 17:21

In Reply to: Pissed off posted by ESC on May 08, 2009 at 14:51:

: : I am pretty sure that "pissed off" meaning angry derives from an old American country simile: 'He was as mad as a fly pissed off a toilet seat'. Is there another explanation?

: I don't have one. And I will use the above at the first opportunity.

To Mr. Landau's question, I'm pretty sure his simile has nothing to do with "pissed off" or just "pissed" meaning angry or fed up. The OED reports the expression in that meaning from 1943, but does not speculate as to how it acquired that meaning. From the date I presume that the expression became popular among the U.S. armed forces in World War II, and perhaps the British as well.
SS